


The Illusion Of Freedom

by zonerunner



Category: dan and phil, the maze runner
Genre: Phandom Big Bang 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 02:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 46
Words: 63,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12471248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zonerunner/pseuds/zonerunner
Summary: White rooms. High-tech experiments. The only life Phil has ever known. That is, until he meets a boy named Dan, and his eyes are opened to a completely new perspective. As Phil grows older, he comes to realise just how much WICKED have lied to and manipulated him and everyone else. But good and bad aren't exactly black and white, and even in this twisted world, can the end really justify the means?My submission for the Phandom Big Bang 2017! I had a lot of fun working on this, especially with the people I got to work with. As well as the story itself, this also contains the phenomenal art done by my friend Misha (@michaelakindlova on tumblr)! Hope you all enjoy!





	1. 221.5.18, 10:32AM

“Philip, are you listening to me?”

 

The boy was shaken out of his daydream by the stern voice of his history teacher. The room, empty except for the two of them, wasn’t really the best place for a young child to spend the majority of his life, cooped up alone with only his various teachers to keep him company; really it was no wonder that his mind drifted off half the time - he had much better things to think about. Such as his fantasy of meeting someone else his age - a fantasy he’d held onto for most of his short life, and would continue to hold onto until that day came.

 

“Yes,” the six-year-old lied.

 

“Well then,” the man, whose name was Mr. Clayton, responded. “What did I just say?”

 

The boy hesitated, looking anywhere but the eyes of the man sat across from him. “I don’t know.”

 

Clayton sighed, a sound of fond exasperation. “Okay, I’m only going to repeat this once, so please listen this time.” The boy nodded, his attention on Mr. Clayton this time.

 

“In the year 2218, there were unexpected Sun flares, bigger than anything humanity had ever experienced before. These flares were so harsh that they destroyed the vast majority of our planet. Billions of people died instantly, millions more lost to famine and disease. For twelve months, humanity did its best to survive, but within a year, there was an estimated less than five million people left on the entire Earth. Then, after twelve months, came an illness like no other; it caused people to lose their minds, slowly but surely, stripping people of every quality that made them human, until those who were infected were reduced to barely more than animals. They called it the Flare.

 

“The Flare caused great sadness to the infected people and their loved ones - the sheer scale and unexpectedness of the disease meant that it was almost impossible to even begin to combat it. Almost. In time, an organisation dedicated to fighting the Flare rose. They called themselves ‘World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department’.”

 

“WICKED.” The boy replied.

 

“Exactly, Philip.” The man seemed pleased that he had been listening. “WICKED made the righteous decision to dedicate everything they had, every resource, every minute, every breath, to fighting this terrible illness. We haven’t found a cure yet, but we’re still working on it. And that’s where you come in.”

 

“Me?” responded Philip, somewhat surprised. “I’m just a kid.”

 

“Precisely. You’re just a kid - you have your entire life ahead of you. You could be the one to end all of this, bring peace and joy to the world again, by eliminating the Flare. All you would need to do would be to continue your father’s research, and you could put a stop to the havoc and sorrow wreaking this world. Do you think you can do that?”

 

The boy was silent for a moment, and then looked up, into his teacher’s eyes. “Okay.”


	2. 224.9.5, 12:30PM

Phil tried to stifle a yawn as he sat, bored out of his mind, at the white desk, various holograms occupying the space around him. This had been his entire life, or at least all his life that he could remember, but he still didn’t like it. It was just so  _ dull _ , sitting at the same desk, in the same room, and no matter how high-tech everything was, Phil found it increasingly more boring as the years dragged on.

 

Phil’s father constantly told him to think of the “bigger picture”, though, so that’s what he tried to do. He had to find a cure, and stop the Flare. The Flare was evil. That was what everyone had always said, always emphasising that it was Phil’s duty to help eliminate the Flare. It had to be the truth; if everyone always said that his only purpose in life was to cure this disease, then it had to be so - why would they lie? Of course they wouldn’t. WICKED was good. No matter how many long, long days he had to endure, Phil just needed to keep reminding himself that this was essentially about saving the world.

 

“Okay, Philip. You can go now, it’s lunchtime. Make sure you’re back within an hour though, alright?” Phil’s father’s voice startled him slightly, and he nodded, not even bothering anymore to ask him to stop calling him that - Philip was so… professional, and distant, and Phil was much nicer, but he knew he wouldn’t listen.

 

Phil exited the room, heading to the canteen, which, though it looked like it could seat hundreds, was always empty except for him and the lady who always gives him his meals, a brown-haired lady named Mrs Rhodes, who looked as though she was in her mid-forties. He’d always wondered what the point of having such a huge canteen was if there was never anyone in there. 

 

Mrs Rhodes smiled as she saw Phil, the usual fake, plastered-on smile, not quite genuine. But it was almost kind, and almost was good enough for Phil.

 

“Here you go, Philip.”

 

“Thank you, miss.” He took the food thankfully, and went to sit at one of the empty tables, allowing his mind to wander as he ate.

 

Phil wondered, not for the first time, if he could just run away, escape WICKED. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help with the cure, but rather that he didn’t want to help with the cure the way that WICKED insisted on doing it. His father always told him to think of the “bigger picture”, but all the same, Phil didn’t like the idea of experimenting on actual people. But if treating a few people like lab rats could save the world, then surely it was for the better, no matter how cruelly they were treated. It still wasn’t right, though.

 

He thought of his father, and all the speeches he’d given Phil about the supposed necessity of experimenting on people, and treating them in ways others would perhaps deem cruel. Phil only looked vaguely similar to his father, which Phil was grateful for. He didn’t want to be the same as his father, what with all the bad things he did. He disagreed with the way his father treated people - it seemed harsh and unnecessary. Sure, Phil understood that experimenting on people and monitoring them was vital to WICKED’s work, but there had to be some way to do so without hurting the people who were being experimented on? Phil was glad that most of his appearance, minus his father’s black hair and blue eyes, seemed to come from his mother, a mother he’d never known.

 

Having finished his lunch, Phil handed the empty tray back to the lunch lady with a word of thanks. Still having just over 45 minutes before he needed to return to the lab, Phil, as usual, had nothing to do but sit thinking for the whole time. He resigned himself to the same listless boredom as ever. Unless…

 

No, he couldn’t. It was too risky. There’s no way he’d be able to sneak off and explore without being caught. Right?

 

Wrong. Phil had never tried to be on his own before, but the prospect of unfamiliarity made it all the more exciting. Everyone had always told him he was “clever for his age”, so maybe he was clever enough to creep away without anyone noticing?

 

Phil made up his mind. He was going to go explore. Just for a little bit, just a walk around a few corridors. He’d come straight back. No one had ever said he  _ couldn’t _ , so he technically wouldn’t be breaking any rules.

 

As soon as Mrs Rhodes’ back was turned, Phil swiftly and silently ran out of the canteen, darting left and right, round the all-too-familiar corridors he’d known his entire life, avoiding the security cameras wherever possible, and sprinting past the ones he couldn’t avoid, as close to being out of sight as he possibly could be. As soon as he got past the lab he had been working in all day, Phil my pace, knowing that he was just about safe. Wandering aimlessly down the corridors, he revelled in the feeling of being alone, and not having anyone to tell me what to do.

 

As he walked, the corridors began to grow less and less familiar, and for a moment he considered turning back - Phil had never been here before, and the last thing he wanted was to get lost. But he decided to keep going - he’d never done this before, wandered around on his own, and it was kind of fun.

 

Suddenly, a person with brown hair streaked round the corner, and before Phil could move out of the way, he was knocked to the floor, winded.

 

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there!” The figure spoke, and offered Phil a hand. Phil looked up and saw something he never thought he’d see in his life: a boy his age.

 

Phil accepted the boy’s help with a thankful smile, standing up and looking at him. He had brown hair and brown eyes, and a friendly looking face.

 

“Hello, I’m Phil,” Phil introduced himself to the boy, smiling.

 

“Hi, my name’s Dan. Nice to meet you.” the boy - Dan - responded.

 

“Nice to meet you, Dan.”

 

Dan’s eyes flickered downwards, looking at Phil’s white clothes, noticing them for the first time, and his expression turned into one of mistrust, annoyance, and dislike. “Oh. You’re one of  _ them _ . I’m not doing any more tests ever again, alright? You lot can just leave me alone.” He turned and walked away.

 

Phil stared at the stranger’s retreating back, puzzled. What did he mean, “one of them”? Then it hit him. “Wait! Dan!” He grabbed Dan’s arm, not wanting to lose the first chance at a friend he’d had in… well, in his whole life. “I’m not one of them! Well, I mean, technically I am, but I don’t want to be. I don’t want to experiment on people, I don’t like it, but I have to, I don’t have a choice, my dad makes me. Please don’t go, I don’t really know anyone else my age, you see, I just want to be friends. Can we be friends?”

 

A slight trace of mistrust was still on his face, but it was overshadowed by another expression - one of amusement.

 

“You talk a lot,” Dan smiled asymmetrically.

 

“Only when I’m nervous. Which I’m not, of course, it’s just that I want to know someone my age, rather than just scientists and teachers, and you’re the first real person I’ve ever met. Well, they’re all real too, obviously, but you know what I mean. Do you know what I mean? I hope you know what I mean.”

 

Dan laughed. “Let’s be friends, Phil.”

 

Phil grinned widely, happy and surprised. He had met another kid, and the kid wanted to be friends with him! “Okay!”

 

He smiled back. “So, who exactly are you, Phil?”

 

“Well…”

 

“I know, let’s go to the maintenance room, we’ll have less of a chance of being caught.”

 

“The maintenance room?”

 

“Yes, that’s what I said, isn’t it?”

 

“Where is this maintenance room?”

 

“Come on, I’ll show you.”

 

Without waiting for an answer, he turned around and walked away. Phil hesitated for a moment. What if they got lost, or didn’t make it back in time? Phil’s father would kill him. What if there was no maintenance room, and it was all just a joke? Dan didn’t seem like the type to do that, he seemed nice, but then again, Phil had only known him for roughly two minutes. On the other hand, though, this was the only chance at anything close to freedom or excitement Phil had ever had. What if he never got a chance like this again?

 

Making up his mind, Phil quickly ran after Dan’s retreating figure, falling into step beside him.

 

 


	3. 224.9.5, 12:43PM

Phil followed Dan through a maze of corridors and staircases, Dan showing him where to go to avoid being caught by security cameras, until the pair ended up in a dimly lit hall in the basement. Walking up to a door with a sign on it that read “ MAINTENANCE ”, Dan opened it, gesturing for his companion to go in.

 

Through the door was a large, dusty room, filled with cleaning supplies, wooden tables, and a million other odds and ends. Dan sat down on a wooden crate, motioning for Phil to sit down on one next to it.

 

Once Phil had sat down facing him, Dan asked, “So, Phil, who exactly are you? I’ve heard about you in passing, but I don’t know a shred of a fact about you, and, not gonna lie, I’m pretty interested.”

 

The question surprised Phil - around the labs, he was usually just known as ‘the Lester boy’ or ‘Philip’; no one ever took the time to get to know him. “Well… I’m Phil Lester, unwilling worker for WICKED, and I’ve never met another kid my age, so this is kind of new for me, and I don’t really know how to make friends.” Phil laughed slightly.

 

“Really?” Dan replied, surprised. “You’ve never met another kid?  _ Never _ ?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“Woah. That kind of sucks. And you work for WICKED, huh? No wonder you’re never with the rest of us.”

 

“The rest?”

 

“Yeah, the rest.” Dan looks at the boy sitting across from him quizzically. “You mean to tell me you haven’t the faintest idea that there are over a hundred other people here?”

 

Confused and taken aback, Phil stared at the near-stranger in front of him, searching for some sign in his face that this was all just a joke, or worse, a test put in place by his father to see if he would obey WICKED or not. “What… what do you mean?”

 

“What I said. Kinda makes sense though doesn’t it? That they’d keep you apart if you were one of theirs.”

 

“Don’t say that! I’m not ‘one of theirs’,” Phil replied, his voice tinged with a hint of pleading, rather than telling.

 

“Alright, sorry. But have you really never met anyone else?”

 

“Other than the other workers, no. Who are all way older than me, by the way.”

 

“Well that sucks. There’s so many other people. They’re all pretty great. At least, Group A is. I don’t know much about Group B really.”

 

“What?”

 

“You don’t even know about the groups? Really?” Taking Phil’s puzzled look as a no, Dan carried on. “Well, we’re split up into two groups - Group A and Group B. Group A is all boys, and Group B is all girls. WICKED keep us completely separate - the only reason we know there’s a Group B at all is because my friend Newt has a sister in there.”

 

“Newt? What kind of a name is Newt?”

 

“A fake name that WICKED forced us to take. They tortured us into it, you know.” Dan looked away, his youthful eyes suddenly filled with memories of fear and pain, too old for the child that he was.

 

“But… but WICKED is good. That’s what they’ve always said…” Phil trailed off. His first encounter with another kid and he was already being made to question his entire existence. Great.

 

Dan snorted. “Come on, mate. Of course they would say that to you. They clearly want you if you’re so young and doing stuff for them, they’re not exactly going to let you know that they’re keeping hundreds of kids cooped up, treating them like guinea pigs every day whilst trying to manipulate them into believing that they’re free.”

 

“Oh…” Phil broke eye contact with Dan, sky-blue eyes clouding with hesitant confusion.

“Yeah, it kind of sucks. I take it you don’t get out much?”

 

Phil laughed dryly. “Are you kidding me? They never let me leave. This is the first time I’ve ever escaped.”

 

“Wow…” Dan was silent for a moment, appearing to be considering something, and Phil wondered if he had done something wrong.

 

“Phil?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Dan looked up. “How would you feel about making some friends?”

 

At first, Phil thought he’d misheard Dan. “Friends? As in, meeting more people?”

 

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”

 

Phil’s eyes widened with hope, the realisation that he wouldn’t be alone anymore truly sinking in. “I’d love to!”

 

“Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen.” Dan looked around the room, as though checking to see if anyone was there, listening to their conversation. “Later tonight, don’t go to sleep. I’m going to find you, and you’re going to come here with me. There are some people I want you to meet.”

 

Phil took this in, considering the risks of being caught out of bed at night, but also knowing that this was the only chance he’d ever had to really experience life. “Okay,” he finally agreed.

 

Dan smiled. “Great. It’s going to be fun, trust me, you’ll like them.” He looked at the clock on the wall. “We should probably get going. Wouldn’t want to be late for yet another afternoon of testing, would we?” He smiled sarcastically and stood up, Phil echoing his movement.

 

The two boys walked back to the main part of the compound. When they reached the corridor where they had first met, Dan turned to Phil.

 

“See you later, Phil. Nice meeting you.”

 

“You too, Dan. See you later.” Phil smiled as Dan returned to wherever he was going. It looked as though loneliness was about to become a thing of the past.


	4. 224.9.5, 11:27PM

Later that night, Phil lay awake in bed, waiting for Dan to somehow find him. The afternoon had seemed to stretch out forever, the hours of testing, brain scans and lab work teasing him, moving slower than they ever had before. Finally, though, the day was over, and he returned to his room.

 

He hoped that Dan had been telling the truth. It was getting late now; what if he never came? What if this had all been a trick, some elaborate prank to poke fun at the boy who had no friends. Or worse, what if this was another one of WICKED’s tests, to see how he would respond to the situation?

 

Phil’s worrying was cut short by a faint knock on the door, so quiet that Phil didn’t know whether he’d imagined it. Straining his ears in the silence, he heard nothing for a few seconds. Then the knock came again, slightly louder this time.

 

At once, Phil’s eyes widened slightly with joy. Dan had come after all! He got out of bed, walking quickly to the door and opening it to reveal Dan standing there. Dan smiled when he saw Phil.

 

“You came!” Phil whispered, his excitement making Dan smile.

 

“Of course I came. I said I would, didn’t I? Now come on, before we get found.”

 

Phil moved forwards, shutting the door behind him, then they both made their way to the maintenance room where they had spent their lunchtime.

 

“Ready?” Dan asked once they reached the door, turning to Phil.

 

Was he ready? As far as the nine-year-old was concerned, this was the most important event of his entire life. Starting now, he’d have actual, real-life friends for the first time. Phil turned and looked at Dan.

 

“Let’s go,” he replied.

 

Dan pushed the door open and walked into the maintenance room, Phil following him.

 

“Well, would you look what the cat dragged in?” A boy with blonde hair grinned.

 

“What’s up, Danny boy?” This came from a boy with dark hair and mischievous eyes,who was sitting on a table.

 

Dan sat down on a chair next to the boy’s table. “For the last time, Minho, I asked you to stop calling me that.” He rolled his eyes, trying to look annoyed, but his smile gave him away. “Sit down, Phil.” He gestured to an empty chair.

 

Phil followed Dan’s instruction, sitting down and facing the other boys sat in the little circle. There was the blonde boy, the one who Dan had called Minho, and a boy with dark skin and wise eyes. They all looked around the same age - around Phil’s age.

 

“So you’re Phil,” said the boy who hadn’t spoken yet. “I’m Alby. Nice to meet you.” He reached over and shook Phil’s hand.

 

“Reckon he means nice to  _ finally _ meet you.” The blonde haired boy spoke up. “Dan’s been telling us about you since lunchtime. The idiot won’t shut up, and he’s acting like he thinks you’re some sort of bloody god. I’m Newt, by the way.”

 

“And I’m Minho,” Minho piped up. “Don’t forget about me, because I’m obviously better than this lot.” He grinned, getting up and pulling Phil into a strange high-five-hug.

 

Newt swatted Minho on the arm as he sat back down. “Don’t listen to him, Phil. He’s full of crap. Anyway, we wanted to know about you. There’s all these rumours, see, because you’re a WICKED worker, but you’re so young. Everyone reckons you’re super clever.”

 

“We wanted to see if the rumours were true or not, and find out a bit more about you. See if we could trust you or not. It’s not everyday - or really ever - that something new or interesting happens around here.” Alby added.

 

“Well, I’m not super clever, and I don’t choose to work for WICKED. They make me, or rather, my dad does. He’s Vice-Chancellor, and he makes me do stuff in the labs.”

 

“If you don’t want to do it, then why do you?” Minho asked, not seeming convinced.

 

“Like I said, I don’t have any choice,” Phil replied. Why was Minho acting as though he thought Phil was lying? “If I refuse to work for them, they’ll… do stuff to me.” Memories of his father shouting at him, threatening to hurt him,  _ punishing _ him, flashed through Phil’s mind. For a brief moment, he imagined himself back in the chair, experiencing what WICKED called a ‘pain simulator’ - although the agony it put him through didn’t feel like a simulation to Phil. Suddenly, a trace of doubt entered Phil’s mind. He’d only been punished twice, and the last time had been over a year ago, but he’d do anything to stop that counter from ticking up to three.

 

Forcefully pushing the thought down, Phil told himself that WICKED wouldn’t punish him for this, because they didn’t know he was here. Besides, both the times they’d punished him had been for repeatedly refusing to do their work. This was different. They wouldn’t hurt him.

 

In the second it had taken for this all to go through Phil’s head, Dan had started speaking, a sympathetic look on his face. “I’m sorry, mate, that sucks. At least you’re here now, right? Away from them for a while.”

 

“Yeah, that’s good, at least. But anyway, what about you lot?” Phil directed his question at the rest of the group, feeling uncomfortable with all the attention on him. He wasn’t accustomed to being in the spotlight, and he didn’t quite know how to take it.

 

For the next hour or so, the five shared stories and joked around, an air of carefree happiness filling the air, until Alby eventually commented that they should probably go to bed if they didn’t want to be tired in the morning. They all said their goodbyes, Dan promising to come and find Phil again in a week or so. Although he didn’t want to leave just yet, Phil reluctantly complied, heading back to his room, retracing his steps from earlier, making his way back to his room. A few minutes later, he was lying in bed, smiling as he thought of his newfound friends, and he realised that there was finally something good in his mundane, never-changing life.

 

\---------------

 

Once a week, the five met at night in the maintenance room. Those nights were always the highlight of Phil’s week; he enjoyed being able to let go of everything for an hour or two, and crack jokes with his friends. Phil finally learned what it felt like to be truly happy.

 

One night, just over a month later, they were all in the maintenance room when the conversation drifted to Phil working for WICKED.

 

“Maybe they’re training you to be the new head of WICKED,” Dan joked.

 

“Come off it, Dan, Phil couldn’t run a single computer if he tried, let alone the whole of WICKED,” Minho teased.

 

Phil gasped, pretending to be offended. “How could you say such a thing? I trusted you!”

 

Alby smiled. “He’s just jealous because he’s not as smart as you are.”

 

“He’s right, Minho. You’re barely intelligent enough to know your left and right, so don’t be teasing Philly,” Newt laughed.

 

Now it was Minho’s turn to look offended. “I thought you were my friends,” he pouted, trying not to smile.

 

“I still don’t understand why WICKED would have a kid working for them,” Alby mused. “It seems strange, that they would make you do all that stuff so young.”

 

“Well, I mean, you don’t have to be smart, you just have to have the wrong parents,” Phil replied, only half-joking. “Besides, I’m not the only one. There are others.”

 

“Others?” Phil’s friends looked at him, confused.

 

“Yeah. These two people called Thomas and Teresa. I’ve never met them, though, I’ve just seen the nameplates on their doors, about halfway between my room and the labs. I don’t know what they’re like, or who they even are, really. But I’m sure they’re not adults, because all the adult workers are called by their last names.”

 

“We’ve heard about them,” Dan said. “Just like there are rumours about you, people talk about Thomas and Teresa. They’re separated from the rest of us, same as you.”

 

Phil considered this new bit of information. “Do you think they’re the same age as us?”

 

“Reckon it’s a safe bet,” Newt voiced his opinion. “Everyone in Group A’s pretty much the same age, give or take a couple of years.”

 

“It sucks that we can’t meet them, find out what they’re like,” Alby mused.

 

“Maybe we can.” Minho spoke up. “We could find their rooms one night, bring them down here. What with all that’s been said about them, it would be great to finally meet them. Besides, I’ve been thinking: they could help us with our plan.”

 

“Plan?” This was the first Phil had heard of this, and he was confused.

 

Dan looked at Newt, Alby and Minho, as if asking for permission to say something.

 

Newt nodded. “I trust him. He won’t tell anyone.” The other two nodded in additional affirmation.

 

Dan leaned forward, as though he was about to tell Phil some sort of big secret. “We’re planning to escape, Phil.”

 

“Escape? What do you mean?”

 

“We’re sick of being here, Phil. We’d much rather take our chances and see what’s out there than spend our lives playing lab rat to WICKED.” Minho explained.

 

“We don’t have any solid plans yet,” Newt supplied, “but we know that we want to get out of here, and we feel like we’re in the dark, not knowing you three.”

 

“Wait, you three?” This remark just added to Phil’s confusion.

 

Alby looked at Newt. “We’ve known about you, Thomas and Teresa for a long time, and we know that you’re separated from us for some reason. We figured you were really smart, and because you do stuff for WICKED, we were going to ask you, along with Thomas and Teresa, to help us with our plans.”

 

“But seeing as  _ someone _ couldn’t look where he was going,” Minho chimed in, glaring playfully at Dan, “we met you before then, and we realised that you’re actually an alright guy.”

 

“Just alright? Wow, thanks,” Phil joked, causing the others to smile.

 

“So what do you think, Phil?” Newt asked, leaning forward in his chair. “Even though we don’t know when it’ll be, will you help us escape one day? You could even come with us, if you want.”

 

Phil considered it for a moment. Was it really worth losing whatever little he had in this world just to help them get away? Would he risk punishment from his father, and from WICKED, to help these people he’d only known for a month, even if they were his friends? They were the only friends he had in this strange world, and he realised that he’d definitely help them escape, help them find a real life, rather than this existence in which they were kept as nothing more than experiments. He’d definitely help them - especially if it meant doing something against WICKED.

 

“I’ll do it,” said Phil firmly, nodding his head. His friends smiled at him, the happiness on their faces clear.

 

“Knew we could count on you, Phil,” Dan grinned.

 

“Okay then, when should we find Thomas and Teresa?” Minho asked.

 

“How about tomorrow night?” Alby suggested.

 

“Sounds good,” Phil agreed. Dan and Newt voiced their consent.

 

“Alright, then it’s settled, gents. Tomorrow night, we find out whether these people are massive nerds or not, being ‘elite’ and all,” Minho confirmed. “Let’s go to bed.”


	5. 224.10.15, 1:02AM

True to their word, the five met up the next night, and Newt went to get Thomas and Teresa, after Phil instructed him on where to go. The other four sat silently in the maintenance room, waiting for his return.

 

“What do you reckon they’ll be like?” Dan asked, breaking the silence.

 

“No one knows yet. We’ll just have to wait and hope they’re not awful,” Alby replied.

 

“Have a little faith, Alby! They won’t be awful,” Phil responded.

 

They lapsed back into silence as the minutes ticked by. Finally, after a few minutes of no one saying anything, the door opened and Newt came in, followed by two unfamiliar people. The boy, who was obviously Thomas, had sandy blonde hair and alert eyes. The girl, Teresa, had dark hair and and aura of intelligence.

 

“What’s up, gents?” Minho greeted.

 

“Would you stop saying _gents_?” This came from Alby. “It’s not funny, and it’s getting on my nerves.” Phil had to admit to himself that Alby had a point - “gents” did seem to be Minho’s catchphrase.

 

Unsurprisingly, Minho wasn’t fazed by the rebuke, walking up to the newcomers with a smile and hugging them both.

 

“You two seem cooler than I thought,” Minho remarked, stepping back. “I was expecting a couple of greasy-haired, buck-toothed weirdos quoting Shakespeare and wring out maths problems on your hands. You actually look half normal!”

 

“Thanks?” Thomas said it as a question.

 

“Ignore him, he’s an idiot.” Dan rolled his eyes with a smile, walking over to stand next to Minho. “I’m Dan.”

 

Phil joined his friends where they were standing. “I’m Phil. Nice to meet you.” At the mention of his name, Thomas and Teresa subtly exchanged glances, their expressions unreadable.

 

Alby introduced himself last. “I’m Alby. Good to meet you guys. Minho actually for once has a good point. WIth all the rumours about you highfalutin folks, we didn’t know what to expect. And that’s why we brought you here today. To check you out. It’s nice to see you’re not too bad, by the looks of it.”

 

This time it was Teresa’s turn to say ‘thanks’ as a question, making everyone laugh. It broke the ice a little.

 

“So,” Thomas said, seeming unsure of what to say, “how long have you guys been sneaking out like this? It’s obviously not the first time.”

 

“Nope,” Alby replied. “It gets so boring following all their rules, doing everything they tell us to. And yeah, they might know what we’re doing - we’re not idiots. But hey, until they actually come out and tell us to stop, we ain’t stopping.” He turned to the others. “Am I right, guys?”

 

“Damn right,” Dan grinned as Minho whooped. Newt gave a bored thumbs up, and Phil just smiled. Somehow, he still felt too out of place to be able to offer a reaction, even though he’d become friends with the other four.

 

“What are all these rumours about us that you guys keep bringing up?” Teresa asked. “And why are we isolated from you? It seems like you’ve all known each other for years. Thomas and I _just_ met. Although…” She looked at Phil. “Phil, aren’t you like us? Don’t you work for WICKED?”

 

Phil looked away. “Yeah, not by choice though. I only just met these guys a month ago.”

 

Teresa nodded, seeming like she’d been expecting that answer.

 

Newt, sitting on a stool by the wall, answered Teresa’s other questions. “Honestly, we don’t know what’s different about you two and Phil. The rest of us have been sharing a cafeteria, going to the same classes, and all that for over a year. Way I see it, you’re either way smarter or way dumber than us.”

 

“Way smarter,” Teresa replied. Her sassy reply threw everyone off kilter for a beat, but then Alby clapped and laughed, and the ice broke just a little more.

 

“Man, I like you guys,” he smiled.

 

“Look,” Minho spoke up, “as much as I’d like to say we’re just being nice inviting you down here, I’m guessing you know we have a reason.”

 

“Of course,” Teresa answered quickly.

 

Minho nodded, an appraising look in his eyes. “Good. Good. We have ideas. Plans. Nothing solid. Nothing too crazy. But information is king, and we feel like we’re in the dark not knowing you two. Though it’ll be a while before there’s complete trust. Fair enough?”

 

“Fair enough,” Thomas replied. “We’ll tell you what we know if you tell us what you know.”

 

Minho smiled. “Nice. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’ll be plenty of other chances to talk. First we wanna just get to know you, maybe show you around a bit, now that we’ve got everyone here. Have some fun. The serious stuff can come in a few weeks or so, when we know you better. Sound good?”

 

Thomas and Teresa looked at each other and shrugged. Phil hoped they’d say yes - they seemed nice. They both turned back and agreed.

 

Newt hopped off his stool and went to the door. “Let’s get out of here before we get cabin fever,” he said. “I know a good place to start their tour - let’s go show them Group B.”

 

A shadow passed over Newt’s face at the words, and Phil remembered Newt saying something about having a sister in Group B the first time they’d met. What did he say her name was? Lizzy? Yeah, that was it. He’d never actually seen Group B before, and felt just as curious as Thomas and Teresa looked.

 

Newt led their group of seven down the basement hallway until they came to a small, unmarked door that barely came up to Phil’s waist. It had a latch and padlock, but the lock had clearly been broken long ago, its surface covered in orange rust. This area of WICKED was obviously off the beaten path. Phil hadn’t seen this place in the month he’d known the other four, but then again, they’d only met up six or seven times in total.

 

Newt bent down and opened the door, then crawled through. Phil saw Thomas give Alby a questioning look, and Alby leaned towards Thomas to whisper something. Phil and Teresa came closer, so they could hear too.

 

“This is sort of like a ritual for us. Newt thinks up reasons to make it happen. See, they have his little sister over there, and when he says he wants to go see her… Well, we learned months ago that you better just go along with it or there’ll be hell to pay. You got me? Family, man, It’s something most of us don’t have any more. Come on.”

 

The group followed Newt up and down ladders and tight, grimy passages. Dan mentioned that it was a secret escape route from years ago. Phil wondered what the building had been used for before WICKED took over.

 

They finally reached their destination: a loft of sorts dotted with dirty windows overlooking a huge barracks full of bunks. Those bunks were full of sleeping children. Phil looked up and down the rows, straining his eyes in the dark. Based on hair length and what he could see of the faces illuminated by the scant light, there didn’t seem to be a single boy in the entire room. Phil’s mind went to the lonely, bare room he spent his nights in, and imagined what it would be like to be around so many people.

 

“They call us Group A,” Alby explained. “And this is Group B. We’re all boys, they’re all girls. How that Aris guy from Group B and Teresa here fit into all that, I don’t get. I mean, I guess it makes sense to separate us. Who knows.”

 

“So you guys live in a place like this?” Teresa asked.

 

Minho answered her. “Yep. I think I could handle transferring to Group B, though. Someone remind me to put in a request.”

 

“Why are we…” Phil trailed off. He didn’t want to say the word ‘different’, because that almost made it more real. He’d begun to feel like one of the group, and he wasn’t going to say anything that went against that.

 

“Special?” Dan asked.

 

“I was going to say different,” Phil commented.

 

“Well, that’s what we want to figure out.” This came from Alby.

 

“Looks like you know more than us,” Teresa said absently.

 

Phil looked over at Newt. His friend stood silent, looking through a window a few feet down from them. Phil walked over to him, followed by Thomas, who asked what he was looking at, although Phil could tell Thomas knew just as well as he did.

 

Newt sniffed, and Phil noticed for the first time that the boy was crying.

 

“You see her?” The tip of Newt’s index finger touched the glass. “Far row, third one from the left side.”

 

Phil saw a girl curled up under a blanket, her arms wrapped around a pillow, dark hair spilling out. “Yeah. Is that your sister?”

 

Newt looked at him, and Phil saw the sadness in his friend’s glistening eyes. “That’s right. Her name’s Lizzy, like I told you, remember?” A long pause followed Newt’s words, during which his head sank until it rested against the window. “At least, it used to be. They may think they have us all brainwashed with our new names, but no way I’ll ever forget hers.” A pang of guilt flashed through Phil - he hadn’t been brainwashed with a name, he had the one he’d been told his mother chose. The only real link he had to her. Phil shook off the thought. Now was no time for self-pity.

 

“What did they change it to?” Thomas asked.

 

“Sonya.” Bitterness filled Newt’s voice. “Can you believe that? They renamed her _Sonya_.” He made a sound that was either a cough or a sob, Phil couldn’t tell. “And WICKED’s so mean about it. They won’t let me see her, and I’ve had to pretend I’ve forgotten it all or they… punish me.”

 

Newt’s last statement truly broke Phil’s heart. How could WICKED do something like this? Steal a brother and sister away from each other, and force them to forget each other or pay the price, without any compassion or regard for their feelings? Phil felt an almost sickening anger at the people who had done this all. He couldn’t understand what would drive anyone to do something like that. What could possibly force an organisation to create such despair where joy was an easy option?

 


	6. 224.10.15, 7:00AM

Phil hit snooze on his blaring alarm clock and rubbed his bleary eyes. Late night adventures always left him tired, but he didn’t regret it at all. He’d gladly be a little tired all the time if it meant he got to see his friends.

 

Half an hour later, once Phil had gotten ready, a WICKED worker whose name he didn’t know brought him his breakfast, just like every day, then left Phil on his own, as usual. He wondered if Thomas and Teresa had the same routine as he did.

 

After he had finished his breakfast, he headed to the lab for yet another day of work about which he’d been told only just enough to do, but not enough to know what he was actually doing. He’d been working on this for almost four months, and he still didn’t understand what he was doing. All he’d been given were instructions for lines and lines of code.

 

As Phil was about to sit down, his father came up to him. Phil met his father’s eyes, the same shade of blue as his.

 

“Philip, starting today, you need not work on this project any longer. It is only days from completion, and I can find a different, older worker to finish it. Instead, it had been decided that you will contribute to a different, larger project, which I am going to show you. Follow me.”

 

Phil took in this information as his father led him down a long hallway, then into two consecutive lifts, travelling further down than Phil had thought the complex went. A ‘different, larger project’? What did he mean? Phil hoped he wouldn’t be administering those DNA tests that Dan had told him about one time. He wouldn’t be able to treat so many people as lab rats.

 

Soon, Phil and his father exited the lift into a large room, empty except for the countless cords, boxes and construction materials, and lit by blue lights. Four professionally dressed adults stood in the room. Phil recognised Chancellor Anderson, but not any of the others.

 

“Good morning, Dr Lester,” the Chancellor greeted his father.

 

“Chancellor Anderson,” Phil’s father nodded. “I do wish I could stay, but I must get back to the labs. I’ll leave Philip with you. Good day.” With a nod, he turned and walked back into the elevator, and the doors slid shut, leaving Phil with the small group of adults.

 

“Hello, Philip.” A pale, dark-haired woman smiled at him, stepping forward and shaking his hand. “My name is Katie McVoy. I’m an assistant vice president with special oversight of the production you’re about to see. This” - she pointed at a man with darker skin, grey hair, and stubble on his cheeks - “is Julio Ramirez, our current chief of security. And this” - she gestured at a blonde woman with a kind face - “is Ava Paige, one of our most important research workers.”

 

Ava Paige. Thomas had mentioned her once, and he’d said he liked her, which was good enough for Phil.

 

“Now, Philip,” Ms McVoy continued. “You’re probably wondering why you’re here. To put it simply, you, along with some other people you’re going to meet, have achieved extremely high results in the schooling and testing we have conducted, making you the perfect fit for the job we’re about to tell you about.”

 

“Think of it as a reward for your good work,” Chancellor Anderson suggested, his tone bright. “You, and two other people, like Ms McVoy said, will be working here.” He gestured around the room. “This is to be the command centre for what we’re calling the Maze Trials. The experiment will be extremely advanced, but we all have faith that you’ll be up to it. Now come, we’d like to show you something, and explain to you what it’ll be used for, and then I think it would be a good idea to introduce you to your partners. Dr Paige, could I ask you to go get the others?”

 

With a nod, Dr Paige entered the lift, the doors closing behind her. Chancellor Anderson turned to Phil.

 

“Follow me, Philip. I think you’ll like what we have planned.”

 

Phil followed the Chancellor through the exit and up four flights of stairs. They came to a massively fortified steel door, which made Phil wonder what could possibly be in there for the door to be so protected. Ms Mcvoy tapped in a security code on a screen. There was a hissing sound, and then, with a heavy, booming clunk, the door popped open. Anderson and McVoy pushed it open all the way, then stood back and then stood back for Phil to go first.

 

With no idea what to expect, Phil walked through the door, onto what turned out to be a platform overlooking an immensely spacious cavern, the size of which took Phil’s breath away. It had to be at least a few miles square, and incredibly tall. Around the room ran steel girders, most likely to reinforce the expansive ceiling. In the distance, the skeletal frame of a wall under construction reached almost to the ceiling. It seemed impossible that something like this could exist underground, but here they were.

 

“What do you think, Philip?” Ms McVoy asked.

 

“It’s… it’s huge,” replied Phil, lost for words. “What is this place?”

 

“This,” Chancellor Anderson announced proudly, “is where the Maze Trials will take place. Of course, everything needs to be constructed first. And that’s where you come in. From now on, you will no longer be doing the work you were before. You’re going to help us build this place.”

 

“You probably have a lot of questions, which is understandable.” Ms McVoy spoke as though she had read Phil’s mind. “For now, though, all you need to know is that you are going to help us build a very special Maze, for an experiment like no other. But you won’t be doing it alone. You’ll be working with two other high-achieving students, who should be arriving any minute now.”

 

As if on cue, the door behind them opened, and in came Dr Paige, followed by two people Phil was not expecting to see.

 

“Phil, this is Thomas and Teresa. Thomas, Teresa, this is Phil. The three of you will be working together on the Maze from now on. We have faith in you, and we know you’ll do well.”

 

Phil shook Thomas and Teresa’s hands, seeing the same masked glint of recognition in both their eyes that he knew was in his.

 

“Okay, we don’t have the time to go over everything, as that would take a while, seeing as this cavern is the result of several years of work. Instead, I’m going to give you a quick overview and tell you” - she directed this at Phil - “what I told these two when they were introduced to the project yesterday. Sound good?”

 

Phil nodded, and Ms McVoy continued. “Alright. Essentially, what you’re looking at here is the beginning of one of two experiments. Once the Maze is built and the Trials are underway, we will be able to continue what we’ve already been doing - namely, studying the killzones of Immunes - in a large-scale environment with no outside influence, and hopefully collect enough data to be able to get what we need for a cure. You three, along with two others working on the other Maze, play a significant role in all this. This won’t be easy, but I know that you’re up to the task. What do you think, Philip?”

 

Phil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A chance to finally do something different? And to work with not just other people his age, but the very two people he had befriended last night?

 

“Yeah, of course,” Phil smiled.

 

“Excellent,” Ms McVoy beamed. “Your father is going to be proud of how much a part of WICKED you’re becoming.” 

 

That killed Phil’s mood a bit. If Phil’s father was proud of him, then that meant Phil was like his father, which he certainly didn’t want. Pushing the thought aside for now, Phil looked at Thomas, who gave him a small, almost undetectable smile that seemed to say, “look who we ran into”. It was a reflection of what Phil had been thinking, and for once, he was looking forward to the days ahead of him.


	7. 224.10.20, 12:15AM

The next few days and nights were action-packed, and full of discovery and exhaustion, leaving Phil feeling as though he was constantly on the move. He met up with Dan and the others every single night, and every night they found something new, from labs to offices, sports facilities to hospitals.

 

Newt had said that he was saving something special for them, but refused to tell them what, doing the annoying little zipped-up mouth sign every time they asked. Dan seemed to be in on it, so Phil asked him; however, Dan was not much better, clearly enjoying every moment of suspense.

 

Minho and Alby had started wrestling while they were waiting for Thomas and Teresa to show up, making the rest of them laugh. Within a couple of minutes, Alby managed to pull a manoeuvre that flipped Minho onto his back.

 

“Not this time, sucker!” Alby yelled, pressing his forearm into Minho’s chest as Newt slapped the floor three times.

 

Alby jumped up, arms raised in a victory dance. Minho scrambled to his feet as well, dusting himself off. He let loose a few choice words, then added a sarcastic ‘Good job’.

 

In the midst of this chaos, Thomas and Teresa entered the room. Phil smiled at them, as though acknowledging the events of that morning, and they returned the expression. 

 

Newt took their entrance as the signal to get going. “Alright, then,” he said, stretching his arms over his head and yawning. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

 

“What’s the big surprise tonight?” Thomas voiced Phil’s thoughts. “Where’re we going?”

 

“Well, we’ve pretty much been from one end of this place to the other,” Newt responded, looking up at the ceiling.

 

He paused for dramatic effect. “Tonight… we go outside. How’s that sound?”

 

Phil grinned, an expression of wonder and joy. In the nine years of his life, he’d never once been outside - at least, not that he could remember. WICKED was all he knew, his entire life, his only setting. That was all about to change.

 

“Sounds brilliant,” he replied.

 

“Let’s do this,” Teresa affirmed.

 

Only Thomas was silent, staring at nothing. Phil could almost see cogs spinning in his brain.

 

“Tommy?” Newt asked, eyebrows raised.

 

“Sorry,” Thomas replied, cheeks flushing ever so slightly. “Wandered off there for a second. What’d you say?”

 

Newt shook his head in admonishment. Try to keep up, Tommy. Are you ready to see the great outdoors?”

They were led to a tall, dusty ladder hidden behind a cinder-block wall, its original purpose unknown. Phil went second to last, below Dan and above Thomas. As he climbed, dirt and gravel fell on top of him, kicked loose by the others.

 

Finally, after climbing what had to be at least ten floors, the group reached a steel landing barely big enough to accommodate the seven of them. A heavy metal door, curved and rusted, sat like an ugly tooth in the cement wall to their left. The only thing on the door that didn’t look a hundred years old was a handle, rubbed shiny silver from usage.

 

“How many times have you guys done this?” Teresa asked.

 

“A dozen?” Alby replied. “Maybe fifteen? I don’t know.”

 

“We stopped doing it when Phil showed up - no offence, Phil, we just wanted to be sure we could trust you before showing you something like this.” Dan cut in. “Then Thomas and Teresa showed up, and we realised all of you were trustworthy and thought ‘hey, why not?’”

 

“You have no idea how nice it is to get some fresh air, though. You’re about to see for yourself. Oh, man, and the sound of the ocean in the distance. Can’t beat it.” Alby continued.

 

Fresh air? But the world had been destroyed in the sun flares, everything was just a desolate, barren desert now. Surely it was dangerous to go outside? At least, that’s what Phil had always been taught.

 

“I thought the outside world was a wasteland.” Thomas voiced Phil’s thoughts. “Radiation and heat and all that? Little things called sun flares?”

 

“Not to mention Cranks,” Phil added, the thought planting a seed of dread in his stomach. “How do you know there aren’t Cranks right outside that door?”

 

“Hey, people.” Minho held a hand up, as if to tell them to slow down. “You think we’re morons? Would we have gone out there fifteen times if we’d lost a finger to a Crank every time or had our privates zapped by radiation? Come on, now.”

 

“Well, no, because you only have ten fingers, not fifteen,” Phil joked, earning a laugh from Dan and Newt.

 

Alby took over the conversation with a little more sense of reason. “Things are starting to get better out there. Plus, we’re way up north, which wasn’t hit as badly. A couple of times we’ve seen snow in the trees.”

 

“ _ Snow? _ ” Teresa repeated, sounding as shocked as if he’d said ‘aliens’. “Are you serious?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Enough chitchat,” Newt said. “Minho, open her up.”

 

“Yes, sir!” Minho barked. He grabbed the handle and pushed it down with a grunt of effort. There was a loud metallic clunk, then the door opened on squealing hinges, swinging outwards.

 

A stiff breeze blew up the ladder chute, pressurised air escaping the complex and rushing towards freedom. It ruffled Phil’s clothes and blew back his hair as it passed him, sending a slight chill down his spine, and his anticipation spiked so hard that it was all Phil could do not to sprint out of the door at once.

 

Minho went out first, followed by Alby, then Dan. Newt gestured for Phil to go next, and he did, ducking through the small opening and stepping out onto a wide concrete platform. The air was crisp and cool, unlike anything Phil had felt before, and adrenaline shot through his veins, a rush that told him that he was here, that he for the first time in his life, he was truly  _ living _ .

 

“Whatcha think?” Minho asked, voice backed by the sound of the ocean crashing against rocks in the distance, just like Alby had said. The sound was much more amazing in real life than in the stimulated clips of life before the flares that Phil had been shown in his history class.

 

Phil looked around, but was unable to see much in the dark night. Lights shone down from somewhere above them, obscuring his vision even more. All he could see was the platform on which they stood, and the railing around its edge. The rest of the world was cloaked in blackness, the only things breaking the tenebrosity being the tiny pinpricks of stars in the sky.

 

“Can’t see a whole lot,” Thomas answered after a moment’s silence. “But man, it feels great.”

 

“Told ya,” Alby smiled.

 

“There’s a drainpipe over here,” Newt said, leaning over the railing at the corner of the platform. “Has notches in it, see? Makes it easy to climb down, but it’s a bit of an effort coming back up. A little sweat’ll be good for you, though.”

 

“Let’s show them the woods. Maybe we’ll get lucky and see a deer. And maybe it’ll let us pet it,” Minho suggested, tone tinged with the same amusement as always, making it impossible to tell if he was joking or not.

 

Alby scrambled over the railing and started his descent, followed by Thomas, then Minho. Newt motioned for Phil to go next, and the reality of the situation washed over him again. They were really doing this. They were outside, in alien territory, uncharted waters waiting to be found. Gripping the notches as he climbed down, Phil imagined what this brave new world would be like, wondering what was beyond the compound. He was quite sure it would be a world away from the stark environment he was so used to, and in that moment he was struck with a desire to run out there and never come back, to find out what living was really like.

 

Phil jumped the last few feet to the ground, and was met with the unfamiliar sensation of soft earth underneath his feet. In front of him was a clearing ending in the outline of the forest, which stood imposingly. Taking in a deep breath, Phil noticed that the air was filled with the smell of salt and pine. He’d never seen anything remotely like this before, except in pictures, and Phil reckoned it was the most beautiful sight that had ever been lain in front of him.

 

“What’s out there?” Thomas asked Alby, gesturing to the wide-open space that ended in the dark wall of the forest. “Can we really just walk away? Why would we even come back?”

 

“Trust me, we’ve thought about it,” Alby responded. “We’ve talked about hoarding a bunch of food and making a run for it. But… the odds, man. Who knows how long we’d last? But even more than that, we’ve got it pretty good on the inside. We’re fed, it’s warm, no Cranks… Still it’s something we think about.” Alby seemed like he was holding something back, but Phil knew better than to push him.

 

Teresa was the last one to jump off the few feet off the bottom of the drainpipe. Alby opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get a single word out, blazing lights ignited from every direction, along with a series of clunks, as if giant switches were being thrown. Rendered utterly blind by the lights, Phil squinted and shielded his eyes, but he still couldn’t see a thing as he looked around. All he knew was that the seven of them were very much in danger.

 

Gradually, four figures emerged, dark silhouettes piercing the brightness. They approached the group, hunched over some sort of handheld weapons, and as they got closer, Phil saw that they were wearing uniforms and helmets. A fifth figure appeared behind them, and as he got closer, Phil was able to discern through the brightness the face of Randall, one of the WICKED worker’s he’d seen on a few occasions overseeing or carrying out a lot of the experiments on the children. The expression on Randall’s face unsettled Phil greatly, in a way he couldn’t quite explain. Looking over at his friends, Phil saw that Thomas was looking at the man with a disguised expression of fear and dislike on his face.

 

“You kids really shouldn’t be out here,” Randall said, sounding almost sad. “But I don’t think you need me to tell you that. You’re smart enough to have figured it out on your own. It seems we need to teach you a lesson about the dangers of the outside world. Make you appreciate what WICKED does for you just a teeny bit more.” His almost robotic speech had the cadence of someone reciting pre-memorised lines in a play.

 

He pointed at Newt. “That one’s not immune - get him back to his room and call a doctor in to test him. Pronto!” The man opened his mouth to speak again as a guard moved towards Newt and grabbed his arm. 

 

“Leave him alone! Don’t hurt him!” Phil knew it was a bad idea to speak, but he couldn’t stayed silent. What if WICKED punished Newt by hurting him? It didn’t strike Phil as impossible.

 

One of the people in uniforms shifted their weapon so it was pointing at Phil, a silent reminder to keep quiet. Phil’s eyes widened and he took a step back, but he said nothing.

 

Randall looked at Phil, disapproval in his eyes. Suddenly, Phil was struck with a feeling of dread. What if he told Phil’s father?

 

“Pity… I would have expected the son of Vice-Chancellor Lester to know when to keep his mouth shut, and not interrupt. Now, as I was saying…” He glared at Phil

 

The man directed his next words at the whole group, a sentence that struck apprehensive unease through Phil’s heart.

 

“Take the rest of them to the Crank pits.”


	8. 224.10.20, 2:09AM

Instinctively, Phil moved towards Dan, who was standing to his left; whether for comfort or to protect his friend, he didn’t know. Looking around, Phil saw that Minho looked like a timer waiting to go off, as though he was about to say or do something that would get him in trouble. He hoped his friend wouldn’t do anything to get himself hurt.

 

One of the guards, a woman, stepped up to the group.

 

“Don’t be scared,” she whispered. “Randall just wants to teach you a quick lesson about the dangers of being out here. It’s for your own good, and you’ll be safe. Just do as we say and it’ll be over soon. Deal?”

 

Phil was too nervous to respond, the words  _ Crank pits _ still reverberating through his mind. His father had always warned him about Cranks, people who had fallen to the Flare and passed the Gone, the name for the point of complete and utter insanity. They were nothing more than animals consumed by bloodlust. Where were WICKED taking them?

 

“Come on, now,” the female guard said to Thomas, gently taking his arm. “If you cooperate you’ll be back in your room safe and sound before you know it, with enough time for a quick nap before the wake-up.”

 

Thomas nodded and followed the guard, Teresa going with him. A second guard took Phil’s arm, and nudged Dan to follow. Phil glanced at Dan apprehensively, half hoping his friend wouldn’t follow, but knowing that not cooperating would cause Dan to be punished.

 

The guard led them after Thomas and Teresa, and they walked away from the drainpipe and along a path that followed the footprint of the WICKED complex. Behind them, another guard followed with Alby and Minho, who both looked just as stunned as Phil felt. The fourth guard stayed at the building, Newt by his side, looking at the ground, his face unreadable. Several yards from Newt, Randall was talking into a phone.

 

As they turned the corner, Phil thought about what the leader had said about Newt: he wasn’t immune. The implications of that were enormous - what if Newt caught the Flare? Phil imagined the horrifying scenario for a moment; his friend succumbing to animalistic madness was not something he ever wanted to become a reality.

 

That thought provided a segue into another - where exactly were they being taken? Being in a place, a pit, as had been said, full of insane, violent Cranks didn’t sound like the safest situation. The guard had said it wouldn’t be dangerous, but Phil didn’t trust WICKED all too much.

 

“Can’t you tell us where we’re going?” Teresa asked as the group continued walking. “What  _ are _ the Crank pits?” None of the guards even acknowledged that she had spoken, her words being greeted with a silence broken only by the sound of waves crashing in the distance.

 

“Answer her.” Thomas spoke up. “Please. We didn’t do anything wrong - we were just exploring. What are we, prisoners?”

 

Phil tried to shoot a warning glance over at his friends, trying to nonverbally communicate just how terrible of an idea to provoke WICKED. It could lead them into all sorts of punishment. The guards were still silent.

 

“Say something!” Teresa yelled. Phil flinched from the sudden noise.

 

Teresa’s guard whirled around to face the group. “You think I like this?” she snapped. Then she looked around warily, as though she had been caught stealing. She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry. Really. Just do as you’re told - it makes things a lot easier. All we’re going to do is help you to realise why it’s better to stay inside.”

 

After that ominous statement, she turned and continued leading them along the exterior of the building. No one said another word, meaning Phil had time to think about the foreboding sentence the guard had just uttered.

 

Eventually, they came to a road. To the right, it wound through some fields, then disappeared into the forest looming into the distance. To the left, it intersected with the WICKED complex itself and turned into a steep ramp that descended beneath the building. A sinking feeling of apprehension manifested itself in Phil, as he assumed they were going to go down the ramp; his dread was confirmed when the guard in front stepped onto the asphalt and turned left, towards the inky darkness of the tunnel thirty feet in front of them.

 

Phil considered grabbing Dan, who was next to him, and making a run for it, but he knew better. For one, the only thing that would earn the two of them was punishment; as well as this, running away would paint Phil as scared of WICKED, something which already wanted to prove he was not. He was going to stay right here.

 

The road dipped down, taking them below the tall, granite walls of the complex. Soon, they were travelling through a wide tunnel with no lights, which seemed peculiar to Phil. He assumed WICKED had turned them off - they surely wouldn’t have built something this dark. He could barely see the figures of the others, even though they were fairly close to him.

 

Suddenly, a sound unlike any Phil had heard before stopped him in his tracks. It was a haunting, barely human noise, somewhere between a cry and a moan, and it sent chills down his spine, his skin prickling with goosebumps.

 

Without warning, a light illuminated the part of the tunnel in front of them, making the shapes of the others clearer. The guard in front was holding a torch, which she shone first at the group of children, then to her left, the beam sweeping over their faces like a searchlight. The light rested on a rickety iron gate, a chain and padlock wrapped around its bars to keep it closed.

 

Without saying a word, the third guard left Alby and Minho and walked over to the gate, pulled out a key, then unlocked the padlock. The loud rattle of the chain being unwrapped echoed through the tunnel. Dropping the chain to the ground, the man opened the gate.

 

“In you go,” he ordered, not unkindly. Phil hesitated, reluctant to get closer to the source of that awful wailing from only moments before. The man clearly picked up on his discomfort. “This is only meant to give you a scare - they won’t be able to actually harm you. I promise.”

 

“What’s in there?” Thomas asked.

 

“Cranks,” the female guard answered in a kind tone completely incongruous with the word itself. “Sometimes we need to remind you just how awful this disease is.”

 

“They won’t hurt you,” said the guard standing by Dan and Phil. His voice was solemn. “They’ll scare the pants off you, but they won’t hurt you.”

 

“Come on, guys,” Minho said, marching past the guard next to him. “Let’s see what’s inside this hellhole.”

 

Phil hesitated for a moment, more than a little reluctant. All the stories he’d heard about Cranks came back to haunt him, filling his mind with thoughts of murderous, insane people who would have no qualms about ripping him to shreds.

 

He wouldn’t give in to WICKED, though. This had to be just another one of their tests. Teresa walked through the gate first. Phil only hesitated for a millisecond before taking a deep breath and following her into the unknown.


	9. 224.10.20, 2:28AM

The darkness, more than anything else, was what made the pathway seem so eerie. Even though one of the guards continued to shine her torch, the beam seemed lost in a black fog, only illuminating floating dust particles. As they walked, small step by small step, across gravel, the slight crunching under their feet made Phil sure that something would notice the noise and jump out, attacking them. They continued down a narrow pathway lined on both sides with the iron railings of a fence. The bars, rising from the ground, were spaced about five inches apart; two long bars ran along the top and bottom. If there was anything on the other side of the fence, it wasn’t visible to Phil. He hoped there wasn’t anything there.

 

“This is spooky.” Minho spoke quietly, but his words rang out in the still darkness. “Alby, hold my hand.” Phil couldn’t tell if Minho was joking or not.

 

“Dude, chill,” came Alby’s response.

 

Their feet scraped against the gravel, causing an echo that almost sounded like whispers coming from all directions. The passage seemed endless and tiny at the same time, and Phil wanted nothing more than to be in bed right now, or back in the maintenance closet. Anywhere but here seemed like heaven to Phil; the tunnel had a certain feel to it, as though no one should be there in the first place. He wanted to leave, to sprint down the tunnel, and by the looks of it, Thomas was thinking the same thing, his posture jumpy and tense, like prey expecting to be attacked by its predator at any moment. Phil dismissed any thoughts of running, though; clenching his jaw momentarily, he kept walking.

 

Soon, the group came to a brick wall, the fence on both sides leading right up to it. A dead end. They were trapped, the only way out a long walk down the tunnel. This only fanned the flames of the fear Phil had been trying to ignore.

 

“What now?” Thomas asked. He was afraid, that much was evident in his voice. “Go back?”

 

“Definitely go back,” Teresa replied. “Maybe this was just a test to see if we’d do what we were-”

 

Minho shushed her mid-sentence, holding a finger to his lips. He looked down, listening to something. In the dim light, he looked like a phantom.

 

“Something’s coming,” he said softly, pointing at the bars to the left of the brick wall. “From back there.”

 

Phil turned to where Minho indicated, staring with trepidation into the darkness beyond the bars and straining to hear whatever it was that Minho had pointed out. After a moment or two, his ears picked up a faint sound. Although none of them were moving, the scrape of footsteps echoed through the tunnel, getting slowly louder. It seemed to be coming from behind them too; as Phil spun around to look though, he realised that the sound was coming from everywhere now, but the source, or sources, were still unknown, not visible yet.

 

“Is that…?” Dan didn’t finish his sentence, words laced with apprehension.

 

“Cranks,” Alby confirmed. “They throw them in a creepy jail under their own building. Nice.”

 

Slowly, shapes were emerging from the darkness, figures to match the footsteps. People. No, not people, Phil reminded himself. Not anymore. Cranks.

 

“I think they must keep them somewhere else, actually,” Minho pointed out. “Or they would’ve been pressed against the bars when we walked down here. I think they just released them like wild animals to pay us a visit.”

 

Moans and indecipherable murmuring broke out among the crowd of oncoming Cranks, increasing rapidly. Phil and the others had definitely been spotted.

 

And then, as though a switch had been flipped, the room filled with a cacophony of deafening, thunderous sounds. Piercing screams and cries of anguish. Roars. Slapping footsteps as the Cranks rushed towards the fence, an onslaught of bodies crashing against the fence. Bodies upon bodies pressed against those who’d made it first, arms reaching through the bars, hands clasping and unclasping as the Cranks reached out in vain, trying to grab the children stood on the other side of the bars from them. Overcome by fear, Phil moved closer to Dan, not realising he’d done so until Dan took his hand, his presence comforting Phil slightly.

 

The two stood in the very centre of the passageway, as far away from both sides of the fence as possible, as Phil looked around, worried that the bars might give way, and not wanting to think about what would happen if they did. Thomas and Teresa stood side by side on one side of Dan and Phil; Alby and Minho were on the other of them, Alby standing with his back against the brick wall, jerking his head from left to right to left again, trying to take it all in. Minho was in front of him, in a fighting stance. If the bars did give way, Phil wouldn’t be surprised if Minho fought just as hard as the Cranks.

 

Phil looked at the sea of Cranks, each and every one of them so far past the Gone that he felt equal parts terror and pity. Once upon a time long gone, these had all been normal people, with families and lives that weren’t centered around derangement. Now, they were nothing more than rabid, vicious animals, eyes emanating an emptiness like Phil had never seen. Gone were the people these Cranks used to be; all that remained was an empty shell, hollowed out and filled up with insanity. Scratches and torn flesh covered their arms and faces, their filthy clothes bloody and ripped. Some screamed, some sobbed, tears streaming down their faces, chilling Phil to the very bone. Others spoke, harshly and rapidly, the words impossible to make out. All of them were reaching, reaching, as if Phil and the others were their only hope to escape the horrific disease that had destroyed their minds. It was a scene of pure terror.

 

One woman, face cleaner than the rest, having fought her way to the front. She stared straight at Teresa, or maybe Thomas - it was hard to tell from where Phil stood. Her lips moved wordlessly, as though she was trying to figure out what to say. And then she spoke, her voice hitching with tremors.

 

“My babies my babies my babies my babies my babies my babies.” The same two words, over and over, not even stopping to breathe. The woman wept, a horrifying picture of hysteria. Abruptly, she attacked the bars like a rabid gorilla, throwing her body against the fence viciously until she finally fell down. It seemed that she’d knocked herself out. Other Cranks pushed forwards, stepping on the woman, trampling her, feet crushing cartilage and bones, a raving mass of lunacy. They were mindless in the most terrifying way, completely unaware of their own actions. Phil felt a rising sickness in his stomach at the sight, his chest tight with fear.

 

“I think we’ve learned our lesson!” Alby shouted, voice desperate. “Head back, now!”

 

Thomas, standing between the rest of them and the way out, made no move to leave. He stood transfixed, seeming hypnotised by the sight before him. Horror wrote itself on face, along with an distant expression - Thomas was clearly lost in memories. He shook his head slowly.

 

“Thomas, go!” Dan shouted as one of the Crank’s hands got dangerously close to him, long, sharp nails almost tearing through his skin. He and Phil were stuck in the middle of the corridor, unable to move for fear of being attacked.

 

Thomas nodded, the same faraway expression on his face. He still didn’t move, increasing Phil’s panic. One of the Cranks had nearly gotten to Dan. How long before they actually did? Was Thomas okay?

 

Teresa leaned forwards, whispering something into Thomas’s ear. Phil only caught a bit of it - “...find a cure. Save people from this.”

 

As though Teresa’s voice had pressed a button, Thomas turned and started walking back the way they’d come, followed by Teresa, leaving space for the others to follow. More than glad to get out of the tunnel, Phil hurried to follow, pulling Dan by the hand. The image of the bloody, raging Cranks had burnt itself into his mind, and all he wanted was to run far away. A seemingly never-ending mass of raging Cranks filled the tunnel on both sides, iron bars the only thing keeping them from their next meal. Screaming and wailing surrounded Phil, simultaneously driving him towards the exit and making him want to curl up into a ball and put his hands over his ears.

 

Without warning, Thomas stopped dead, causing Teresa to bump into him and Phil to narrowly avoid colliding with the two of them. Why had he stopped? Phil opened his mouth to tell Thomas to keep going when he saw a man standing just a few feet in front of Thomas. Fear gripped him again, choking him, and at that moment Phil was sure that all of them were about to die. A Crank had escaped somehow, and now it was going to kill them, its actions fueled by a mindless lunacy.

 

However, a second look at the figure stood before them showed Phil that this wasn’t a Crank. Not like the ones behind the bars, anyway. He was more composed, showing no signs of being about to run at them. He wasn’t exactly well, though - his blonde hair was dirty and uncombed, his clothes rumpled, bloodshot eyes staring at the group. He was unwounded, and stood calmly in front of them. The strangest thing of all, though, was that he held a small chalkboard in the crook of his arm.

 

Without uttering a single word, the man pulled out the chalkboard and used a piece of chalk held in his other hand to write something on it. Then he held it up for the group to read. The three words seemed to glow in the dim light:

 

_ WICKED is good. _


	10. 224.10.20, 3:14AM

The stranger pointed at the chalkboard and nodded solemnly, lips quivering as if he were about to cry. He brought the board back down to rest in his arm again.

 

The simple, twenty-second encounter raised so many burning questions in Phil. Who was this man? Why was he down here? Did he have the Flare? Did he work for WICKED? Phil didn’t have time to ask any of them, though, as the man turned around and began to walk back down the tunnel, towards the outside world. Phil knew that the group had no choice but to follow - it was either that or go further into the Crank pits again. To each side, the Cranks still wailed and screamed and reached out, all that mere background noise as the man took centre stage in Phil’s mind.

 

Still walking behind Thomas and Teresa, Phil followed the stranger, realising that at some point in the last few minutes, he’d let go of Dan’s hand. He made no move to take it again; his panic had subsided quite a bit, and he no longer needed anything to ground him - his mind was focused on curiosity rather than fear.

 

The group passed through the gated tunnel once again, the awful sounds of the infected slowly fading behind them. Finally, the man reached the gate leading back into the main tunnel, opened it, and stepped through, waiting for Phil and the others to do the same before closing. The guards, still where they’d left them, watched the whole sequence of events transpire; then one of them stepped forwards, picking up the chain and locking the gate back up. The sounds of the Cranks were nothing more than distant echoes, but the memory was still clear in Phil’s mind.

 

Phil and his friends stood close together, and instinctive circle of protection. To Phil’s right, Dan stood, eyes wide, as though he still couldn’t quite believe what they’d just seen. Alby and Minho were quieter than they’d ever been, and Thomas and Teresa looked shaken. Phil couldn’t blame them - the pits had been more horrifying than anything Phil had ever seen.

 

Slowly, the man with the strange sign walked closer and closer, until he stood only a few feet in front of the group. He gazed into each of their eyes in turn; Phil felt a wave of unease wash over him as the man stared directly into his eyes. Then, the man spoke for the first time.

 

“You’re probably wondering who I am,” he stated, voice unsettlingly cheerful. “As well you should. You’ve seen the burden that I must bear, the weight that I must carry around with me. Three words, my friends. Only three words. But I hope tonight has taught you that they are the most important three words in the world.”

 

“Who are you?” Alby asked, voicing Phil’s thoughts “Do you… work here?”

 

The man nodded. “My name is John Michael. I…” He paused to cough, pressing his hand to his chest. “I was so… essential to this organisation. Once. Once upon a time. It was me. It was… I… who gathered the survivors. The leaders. Gathered them here. I had the idea, my friends. I… had the…  _ idea _ !” He shouted the last word, spit flying from his mouth.

 

Instinctively, Phil took a step backwards, and noticed that the others had done the same.

 

“But then, you see,” John Michael continued, his eyes a little wilder, his demeanour a little more ruffled, “then I caught the Flare. The… damned… Flare. I fought so hard to help our fellow humans.” His head drooped and tears trickled down his cheeks. “It’s not fair that I should be the one to catch it. Soon I’ll be living with…”  His gaze found its way past them, focusing on the cages on the other side of the tunnel.

 

“But then… No,” he mused. “No, we won’t allow such an undignified ending for me. Not for me. Not for the man who started the Post-Flare Coalition, fought for its survival, preached its importance. Would you throw someone like that into those pits. I ask you, now. Would you?” The man was creeping towards the verge of hysteria, his eyes wild. In front of Phil, Thomas shook his head quickly, posture that of a cornered animal.

 

John Michael moved half a step closer to the group, a shuffle that was slightly off balance. His face glistened with tears.

 

“I’m not here to ask you any favours,” he said. “I’m here to tell you there’s no choice in the matter. It’s your… obligation to help people like me. Help future people like me.  _ Do you understand? _ ” He urgently emphasised the words with a heart-wrenching sadness. The guards nearby did nothing, standing there like impassive statues masked in shadow.

 

“We… understand,” Teresa agreed at least, voice surprisingly steady. “We’re sorry you’re infected. Most of our parents got sick too, so we know what it’s like.”

 

As if her words had flipped a switch, the man’s face suddenly transformed into a furious, trembling red mask. His eyes bulged as he erupted, spewing words in a tirade of anger.

 

“You have no idea what it’s like!” he screamed, his voice cracking. “How could you be trying to escape, running away from our chance to cure?”

 

The man was barely holding it together, his trembling posture planting the fear in Phil’s mind that he’d lash out, attacking him or one of his friends. It seemed like he’d snap at any moment. Minho stepped out, moving past Phil, past Thomas and Teresa, and directly in front of John Michael. Shockingly, the guards did nothing to interfere.

 

“We weren’t going anywhere,” Minho said, trying poorly to steady his voice. “And it doesn’t seem right to treat us like this.”

 

“Who do you think you-” In mid-sentence the man sprang forwards with arms outstretched, reading for Minho’s throat. He caught him before Minho could move, both hands clasping the boy’s neck as they fell to the ground. John Michael quickly scrambled on top of him, then put all his weight on Minho’s throat, pressing him down.

 

Minho kicked, arched his back, tore at the man’s hands, all the while making a strangled choking sound. After a moment of shock, Phil immediately ran forwards, his only thought being to get the man off Minho. Launching himself shoulder-first into John Michael, he managed to knock him off his friend.

 

Phil and John Michael tumbled over and over, Phil fighting to get on top. The man was a lot stronger than he was, though, and he managed to straddle Phil just as he had Minho. Suddenly, Dan was there, running into John Michael, his momentum toppling the bigger man to the ground. Phil scrambled to his feet, bracing himself for another attack.

 

The guards broke out of their stupor and moved in to stop the sudden violence.

 

“Alright, that’s enough.” The guard’s voice was almost too calm. “That’s enough. He’s obviously not well.”

 

Phil didn’t move from his defensive stance. Neither did Dan or Minho.

 

The guard cocked her gun, then yelled in a much louder voice, “Stop! Everyone!”

 

Arms closed around Phil’s chest, and he twisted around to see Thomas dragging him backwards, away from where John Michael lay on the ground. Alby and Teresa had Dan and Minho. Soon they were all standing at a safe distance, Phil trying to catch his breath, looking down at the grown man who now lay on the ground weak and childlike, nose bleeding, lip swollen. Had Phil really played a part in that? He hadn’t meant to hurt the man, just to get him off of Minho. Then, shocking everyone once again - even the guards, by the looks of it - he pushed himself onto his knees and clasped his hands together, holding them out in friend of his chest. His fingers were intertwined so tightly they had gone white.

 

“Please,” he begged in a trembling voice. “Please don’t judge me. Please  _ save _ me. If not me, those who come after. Please, I’m begging you. Please, please, please.” Every word he spoke was a whimper, tears streaming from his face as if a tap flowed from behind his eyes. His entire body shook, shoulders lurching with sobs.

 

“Please, please save us. Please find a cure.” His words were almost a whisper now, his eyes slowly closing. “Please, please, please, please.” Each word came out between sobs, tremors quaking his body. The man’s sadness was so absolute, so extreme, that he was clearly very much out of his mind. The deranged display was perhaps more unsettling than anything else Phil had seen that night.

 

Then, out of the darkness, the man from before appeared, the one who had ordered for Newt to be taken away. It almost seemed as though he’d been watching the whole thing from deep in the shadows. He walked forwards, not saying a word until he stood directly over John Michael.

 

“ _ This _ is what the world has come to,” he said. “Unless you’re immune, of course, and until we have a cure. Otherwise, there are two choices. Become one of those… things you saw in the cages, or end it all before you reach the Gone, end your life. Which this good man has asked me to do when the time seems right. I hope you can appreciate the effort it must have taken him to put together a few coherent sentences tonight.” He jerked his head at the guards. “Take them back in. I think our old friend has reached his end date.”

 

The man pulled a gun out of his waistband and cocked it. Phil’s eyes widened. Surely he wouldn’t just shoot John Michael? But then again, wasn’t it better than letting him slowly go insane? Maybe, in some cases, death was better than madness, but even still, how could you just shoot someone? The man didn’t even seem the slightest bit sad, keeping the same impassive expression he’d been wearing all night.

 

“What are you going to do?” Thomas asked.

 

The man’s silence was answer enough.


	11. 224.10.20, 4:01AM

No one spoke a single word as they walked back into the complex and got checked in. Phil and his friends remained as silent as statues, carrying out their movements automatically, almost robotically, minds trying to process all they’d seen. Thoughts raced through Phil’s head at lightning speed, all he’d seen shocking him and scaring him. The Cranks, John Michael, the man who was going to shoot him, Phil’s first time outside WICKED in all his life, as far as he could remember. He didn’t think he’d ever forget being outside, though, even if he’d only been a baby. Though it had been short-lived, the rush that the cool night air and the sounds of the waves had given him was imprinted in his memory, along with the unfortunate events of the night. Phil just couldn’t get the Crank pits out of his mind - the display of complete, animalistic insanity had been terrifying.

 

The three guards accompanied the group to a lift which they rode up several floors, then led them down a few hallways. Eventually, they got to another lift, taking that one up as well. Minho, Dan and Alby were escorted off the lift first, by two of the guards. Phil made eye contact with Dan, unspoken words passing between them as they both wished they didn’t have to be separated. All they had wanted was to defy the rules a little. Now look what had happened.

 

As the doors of the lift closed, seeming too much like a death sentence, Phil wondered if he’d ever be able to see his friends again. He didn’t know if he’d be able to cope with returning to the boring life he used to have; the past six weeks had easily been the most amazing he’d ever experienced. How could he possibly work for WICKED all day without knowing that he’d be able to laugh with his friends at night, even if he had been introduced to this new ‘Maze Project’? It just didn’t seem possible

 

Even worse, what if WICKED punished his friends for being outside? Sure, the Crank pits had been a pretty scarring punishment, but what if that was deemed to be not enough? To what lengths would WICKED go to make sure no one left their complex? Phil looked up at the guards. Externally, they didn’t seem like the kind of people who were capable of hurting children just because they didn’t like the life they’d been forced to live, but Phil knew better than almost anyone the lengths to which WICKED would go to ensure no one stepped out of line.

 

Surely his friends wouldn’t get hurt though? Phil thought back to the ‘experiments’ his friends had told him about. If WICKED needed them for whatever it was they were doing, it wouldn’t make sense to hurt them, would it?

 

Phil spent the rest of the journey consumed in his thoughts. Finally, after what seemed like an endlessly long journey, the group came to the door to Phil’s bedroom, Thomas and Teresa’s rooms still a few corridors away.

 

“Here we are, Philip. Time to go.” The guards words were far too lighthearted for the situation at hand. Maybe that was what made Thomas angry.

 

“How could he do that?” Thomas asked, his voice seeming loud in the confines of the hallway.  “Just shoot a man in the back of the head?” He looked as if he wanted to add more, but he didn’t.

 

The woman sighed, out of some deep frustration that seemed too complicated to understand. “Mr Michael himself, the man who made it possible for us to be here today,  _ asked _ him to.” She opened the door to Phil’s room. “Come on, now. Bedtime. Say goodnight to your friends, because it might be a while before you’ll be able to see each other again.”

 

“How long?” Phil asked suspiciously, the guard having just confirmed his fears from before.

 

“Couple of years, they tell me,” was her response. “There’s plenty of work to do, and everyone needs a full night’s sleep. Just… no more parties for the time being. It’s for your own safety. Goodnight.”

 

With that, the guard turned away, her hands resting on Thomas and Teresa’s backs, not exactly pushing them but not leaving them any choice of where to go. Phil wanted to speak out, to say something to his friends, but he didn’t know what to say, and remained silent as he watched them turn the corner and disappear from sight.

 

Knowing there was nothing else he could do, Phil went into his room, closing the door behind him and leaning against it heavily with a sigh. After a few moments, he walked over to his bed and lay down, but unsurprisingly, he couldn’t sleep, dwelling over the events of the night. A couple of years, the guard had said. A couple of years until he could see his friends again. Phil didn’t know how he’d ever be able to manage going back to WICKED’s planned out, mundane existence when he knew how brilliant life could be. What if they separated his friends? Phil knew that Dan, Minho, Newt and Alby all lived together with a lot of others, and he didn’t want them to have to go through the same isolation that had been his entire life. Especially not after living their lives surrounded by other people. To be ripped away from all that would be awful.

 

His mind travelled back to the Cranks he’d been forced to be so close to just an hour or two earlier. He remembered the way their eyes looked as if there was nothing behind them, the way they screamed and wailed and moaned, hollow, miserable cries almost inhuman. He remembered their hands, reaching out, stretching, trying to grab him and his friends. The Cranks were human, but at the same time, they were the furthest thing from it.

 

Phil thought of the Flare. The disease that had caused all this in the first place. It was terrifying, what the virus caused. Sure, WICKED was cruel, but if they were trying to get rid of the Flare, surely there was some good in them? Could the end justify the means? They were experimenting on children, hurting them for all Phil knew, and yet they were doing it in the name of finding a cure, a way for humanity to be returned to what it used to be, before the sun flares destroyed everything. On the other hand, though, wasn’t there a better way than experimenting on innocent children and treating them like lab rats?

 

Phil lay awake for a while, thinking about so many different things. When the ever-anonymous guard brought him his breakfast at the usual time of seven o’clock, Phil was still awake. He hadn’t slept a bit.


	12. 225.1.9, 6:58PM

Phil sat at his desk, tapping rapidly at the holographic keyboard in front of him. Since the incident with the Crank Pits a few months ago, he hadn’t seen his friends at all, and he missed them. He missed the nights he’d spent in the maintenance room, laughing and learning what it was like to feel true happiness. He missed truly living, and even if he’d only known the others for a few months, and Thomas and Teresa for a few days, he’d do anything to see them again. Life wasn’t the same if there was nothing to look forward to.

 

The novelty of having a new job had begun to wear off slightly, replaced with a deep longing for the company of his friends. At first, he’d been excited to start on the new project, and had listened with his utmost attention when Katie McVoy had briefed him on his task - creating the walls of the Maze. They weren’t just walls, though - they were moving walls which, when done, would spell out one letter of a phrase every day, if the eight inner sectors of the Maze were put together in a certain way. The words Phil had been told to put into the walls were ‘float’, ‘catch’, ‘bleed’, ‘death’, ‘stiff’, and ‘push’, a requirement he didn’t quite understand. He didn’t understand much, simply because he hadn’t been told much. He knew enough to do the task, but not enough to actually know what it was he was doing, just like any other time he’d been assigned a project by WICKED.  While he’d been intrigued by the concept of walls that moved every night, spelled out words and still formed an almost impossible labyrinth, he didn’t know why the words were so morbid. He’d taken up the task, though, partly because it was new and interesting but mostly because he had to. After a few months, he was only just starting the third letter of ‘float’. Designing at least twenty-four different combinations of walls, and by extension twenty-four completely different mazes (but most likely more, according to Ms McVoy) wasn’t as easy as it had been made to sound. In the end, at least it was something different to take up his days.

 

He’d had blood taken again that morning, a process familiar to him - he had to have blood taken every week, since he was immune. It was part of WICKED’s research on what caused immunity to the Flare. He wondered, not for the first time, why it only seemed to be children who were immune to the Flare. Perhaps it was some sort of adaptation? Maybe as their cells grew and strengthened, so did their immune systems? Phil was only guessing, but then again, he wasn’t one of the people working in that area of WICKED. On some things, such as the cause of immunity, he had little knowledge, no matter how smart people claimed he was.

 

“Philip, it’s seven o’clock. You can go for dinner, then it’s bedtime. I’m sure you know the drill by now.” The gentle yet authoritative voice of Katie McVoy sounded in the room, which had been silent apart from the quiet sound of people tapping on holographic keyboards. Phil was still the youngest person there - that much hadn’t changed, even if the room he was in had.

 

With a nod, Phil stood up and stretched before making his way out of the command room. He took the long journey up in the lift, the same lift he’d taken months ago when he’d been introduced to the project. Since then, the room had been transformed - desks, screens and holograms populated the once-empty room, turning it into another lab almost the same as all the rest. There were only two significant differences; first, the group of screens which took up the entire wall opposite the lift, connected to surveillance cameras overlooking what would become the Maze; second, the fact that the desks, all facing the same way but not quite in uniform rows, were not as many as the other labs. Only around twenty desks were in the command centre (one of them belonging to Phil), as opposed to the usual thirty or so in other WICKED labs. Phil supposed that not all that many people were needed to watch this project. It was probably more dependent on the people who analysed the data, rather than those who collected it, just like many of WICKED’s other experiments.

 

As Phil made his way out of the lift and down the hallway, he heard snippets of a conversation floating through the air, the words unintelligible through the walls. He paid no mind to the conversation, other than being aware it existed, and continued walking. However, as he continued moving further down the corridor, the voice gradually became louder and clearer. Halfway down the the corridor was a door, white like all the rest in the compound, completely unassuming; as he approached the door, Phil realised that behind it was the source of the voice, as he could now hear the speaker’s individual words. Paying no attention, he was about to pass the door when two familiar words caught his attention.

 

“...Philip Lester…”

 

With a start, Phil realised that whoever was inside the room was talking about him. Curiosity piqued, he backtracked, standing outside the door, trying to hear the muffled conversation. Straining his ears, he heard a second voice respond to the first, this one calm and authoritative.

 

“I myself believe that implementing Philip in this way will be beneficial in the long run. We already know he’s immune, so it makes no sense to keep him out of it and miss out on an extra set of killzone patterns. And on the subject of killzone patterns, the ones we’ll be able to achieve from isolation and possible feelings of helplessness will help us another step closer to our goal.”

 

The voice sounded male, serious, middle-aged. Confusion flooded Phil’s mind. What did they mean, implement him? Implement him into what? Why were they talking about isolation and helplessness? Questions to which Phil did not have the answer formed in his mind, and he listened closely in hopes of hearing the answers.

 

“But what about Phase Two? How will Philip fit in, how will he react once his friends are within his reach again?” The second voice sounded as if it belonged to someone younger than the first, but still male.

 

Within his reach? Why would they ever be out of it? Phil supposed they were out of it now - he hadn’t seen them in what seemed like eternity, and was reminded again how much he missed them.

 

“If we need to carry out a second stage to the Maze Trials, I’m sure we will be able to implement Philip into that as well. We’ll have him on the outside looking in again. The patterns we’ll gain from that will, I think, be quite fascinating.”

 

Phil felt uncertain. What did they mean by “on the outside looking in”? What was he going to be outside of? None of the many questions he had were even close to being answered.

 

“It has been decided, then, that the operation will be carried out tomorrow?”

 

“Indeed. I believe the girl is only a few months away from figuring out how the implants work, and we need to give Philip’s implant time to settle into his brain, so to speak, before that can happen.”

 

A strong feeling washed over Phil, a feeling that told him he shouldn’t be listening to this conversation. This wasn’t meant for his ears; clearly, he wasn’t supposed to know anything about what was being said.

 

“Is the implant prepared?”

 

“The surgeons are preparing everything as we speak. The operation may not be until tomorrow, but this will have a significant impact on the Maze Trials. We want to make sure everything is in place.” The speaker paused. “Trust me. We’ve been planning this for months. This decision is the best we could make in terms of getting the most out of the Maze Trials. Plus, an extra pair of hands working on the Maze will be even more effective if he can speak to the other two.”

 

“I understand. I have one question, though.”

 

“I’m listening.”

 

The younger-sounding man hesitated. “Suppose Philip doesn’t want to play his part? What happens if he learns the true nature of the Maze Trials? Will he resist? He’s shown himself to have a rebellious nature in the past, and has gone against WICKED before. Who’s to say he won’t do so again?”

 

The other man was silent for a moment before giving his answer, as though he were carefully considering his words. “It’s true that Philip has gone against WICKED in the past. It can be hard to make him comply at times. However, he’s had years of education from WICKED, and I have faith that he’ll be able to see that what we’re doing is for the good of humanity. He will do what we say, and he’ll help us, I’m sure of it. We need-”

 

Suddenly, a large hand on his shoulder jolted Phil out of his listening. Whipping around with a start, he looked into the eyes of his father. Immediately, dread filled Phil’s stomach. Was his father going to punish him for listening in to the conversation? Phil moved his foot backwards, not quite stepping away but still unconsciously distancing himself.

 

“What are you doing, Philip?” His father asked, his tone stern and suspicious.

 

“Nothing,” Phil lied. “Just going to get dinner.”

 

“Well, you go and do that, then. And then go straight to bed, understand?”

 

Phil swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

 

His father took his hand off his shoulder, a movement Phil took as his cue to leave. Deliberately walking at a normal pace so as to mask his fear, he made his way down the corridor, feeling his father’s eyes on his back until he turned the corner.


	13. 225.1.10, 7:00AM

The blaring of Phil’s alarm clock woke him from his dreamless sleep. Internally groaning, he rolled over, hand searching for the snooze button, managing to locate it and stop the repeated beeping that seemed to pierce his skull. All those things the adults said about children having more energy made no sense to Phil - he hated waking up in the morning. He’d much rather sleep for an extra ten minutes. He wouldn’t miss anything if he did.

 

As Phil tried, in his half-asleep state, to recall what was going to happen that day, something from the previous evening came back to him: the conversation he’d overheard. Now fully awake, he sat up, remembering the details of what had been said. Something about an operation… was that going to happen to him? Would he find out about the mysterious ‘implants’? Even though he was burning with curiosity, Phil was somewhat reluctant to find out; something about the conversation had given him the impression that whatever they were talking about wasn’t exactly going to be sunshine and rainbows. Not that he’d ever seen sunshine or rainbows, except in pictures from long ago, before the flares. The WICKED compound was his entire life.

 

Reluctantly, Phil reached over and turned off his alarm before getting out of bed and going to pick up his clothes, which lay folded on the chair by the desk. Just like most everywhere in the WICKED compound, the room was monochromatic - white walls, white desk and chair, white clothes, white bedsheets. Everything was white, and he hated it. His glimpse of the outside world had been dark and brief, but it had been enough to make the plain colours of the WICKED compound pale in comparison.

 

Phil got dressed, knowing that, even though he didn’t want to see what the day had in store, he’d get in trouble if he wasn’t ready when someone came. Thirty minutes later, just like clockwork, a knock sounded on his door - the WICKED worker bringing him his breakfast. After he’d finished eating, he went to the command room as usual; no one had come for him, and he was beginning to think he’d jumped to conclusions about the ‘operation’ and the ‘implants’. No sooner had he sat down at his desk, though, then a man he didn’t know came up to him.

 

“Good morning, Philip. My name is Dr Leavitt.” The man was bald, and looked as though he were in his mid-forties. His tone wasn’t mean, but it wasn’t kind either. It was polite, but not genuinely so.

 

“Good morning,” Phil replied. Apprehension began to form in his mind. Had he interpreted the conversation correctly after all?

 

“I have some good news for you: you’ve got the day off today. How does that sound?” He didn’t wait for Phil to respond before continuing. “You’re going to be having a small medical procedure performed on you today, just a tiny operation. We’re going to put something in your brain, an implant that will help our research. Is that okay?”

 

It seemed that Phil had been right after all. They were going to put some sort of implant inside his head which, by the sound of the conversation he’d overheard last night, was going to do more than just monitor his brain. Why didn’t WICKED want him to know that? Who was ‘the girl’, and why was she close to figuring out how the implants ‘worked’? Although Phil had a lot of questions, he knew to keep quiet; he obviously wasn’t supposed to have heard what he had heard, and asking about it would probably get him into trouble, and he wouldn’t receive any answers.

 

Realising that Dr Leavitt was still waiting for an answer, he nodded his head.

 

“Good.” The man’s smile was simply a movement, rather than an expression. It didn’t reach his eyes. “If you follow me, I’ll take you up to the medical area and we can get this done.”

 

Phil did as he was told, walking behind Dr Leavitt as he led him out of the command room, up the lifts, down the hallways. Once they were back on the main floor - or rather, the floor Phil considered to be the main floor, since his bedroom, the lab he used to work in and the canteen were all there, among other things - Dr Leavitt led him into another lift and pressed the button for the ninth floor. Phil had never been to the ninth floor before, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to now. Had he been right in his assumptions, or was he jumping to conclusions?

 

Once they reached the ninth floor, the lift came to a stop and its doors slid open to reveal what seemed like some sort of hospital unit. As he followed Dr Leavitt, exiting the lift and turning left, he was met with a desk in front of glass partitions, behind which Phil could see different types of monitors and instruments. They continued past the front desk and beyond the glass, walking down a hallway. They passed door after door, all of them closed, with numbers on the front and frosted glass in the windows.

 

Soon enough, they reached a door on the right, labelled  _ 26 _ . Dr Leavitt came to a halt, the action prompting Phil to the same 

 

“Here we are,” he announced, turning the handle and entering the room, Phil following behind him. Inside the room were two beds, one to the left and one to the right, both with privacy curtains that were drawn back. By each bed were a few monitors and screens, none of which were turned on. A trolley with various medical equipment stood by the bed on the left. Aside from Phil and Dr Leavitt, the room was empty.

 

“The doctors will be here in half an hour,” Dr Leavitt stated, walking over to the bed on the left. A hospital gown lay neatly on the crisp white sheets; he picked it up and held it out to Phil, who took it with a murmur of thanks.

 

“There’s a bathroom over there, you can go get changed,” instructed Dr Leavitt, pointing to a door in the corner of the room.

 

“Okay,” Phil agreed, making his way into the bathroom. As he took off his clothes and put on the hospital gown, he considered making a run for it. He didn’t want WICKED doing anything to his brain. He hadn’t even been told what was actually happening; all he knew was what he’d overheard the night before, and that didn’t sound all too good.

 

He considered running as he walked back out, eyeing the door at the other end of the room. It would never work, though - Dr Leavitt was bigger than him, and would catch him before he could make it out the door. No, the strange caricature of a game of tag was nothing more than a fleeting fantasy, and Phil knew that he had no real option but to let WICKED do whatever they were planning to do to his brain, whether he liked it or not. And knowing WICKED, they would do just about anything if they thought it would help them with their ‘research’.

 

At Dr Leavitt’s instruction, Phil placed his neatly-folded clothes on a chair by the bed. Having nothing else to do but wait until the doctors arrived, he sat down on the bed, at the end nearest the wall.

 

Perhaps noticing the look of unease on Phil’s face, Dr Leavitt asked, “What’s wrong, Philip?” Although his words weren’t exactly compassionate, they weren’t unkind either. It was rare for any of the WICKED workers to display any kind of concern for him, and Phil found himself 

caught somewhat off guard by the question.

 

“I just don’t know what they’re going to do to me.” Phil looked up, meeting the older man’s eyes, and tried to put sadness into his gaze. He knew it was most adults’ natural instinct to want to protect a child, especially a child who was sad. “What if they do something bad?”

 

“Hey, cheer up,” Dr Leavitt said, sitting down on the other end of the bed. “All we’re going to do is put a little implant in your brain that will make it easier for us to extract data. You won’t have to have your brain scanned as often now, if at all. All the data will be delivered from the implant directly to us in the lab. It’s nothing to worry about, honest.” He smiled in a way that was probably meant to be encouraging, but seemed slightly menacing to Phil.

 

“Are you sure?” Phil asked. He wasn’t convinced by Dr Leavitt’s words - he knew what he had heard the night before.

 

“I’m sure. Don’t worry about it hurting - the anesthesia will have you out like a light, and you won’t feel a thing. The worst that could happen is that you might have a headache for a few days after the operation. We have pills for that, though.”

 

“Okay.” Although Phil still didn’t know what was really happening, he knew there was no way he could ask further questions without arousing suspicion.

 

The two fell into silence, giving Phil time to think. Obviously, if WICKED had wanted him to know about being ‘implemented’ into the Maze Trials - whatever that meant - surely they would have told him already. By now, it was clear they didn’t want him to know. Why keep it from him, though? He was already working in the command room. How much more involved could he be?

 

Phil had so many questions which were still unanswered. Who was ‘the girl’? How was she figuring out how the implants worked? How  _ did _ they work? Phil was quite sure they weren’t just for collecting data, if they did that at all.

 

He desperately wanted answers - he felt as if he were being tricked by WICKED somehow. There was no way he’d have his questions answered if he just asked. He’d be told off, and WICKED would become suspicious. A thought came to Phil, though - what if he tried asking in an indirect way? He’d have a better chance of having his hunger for answers satiated than if he asked Dr Leavitt outright. It seemed like the safer option. What did Phil have to lose? He gathered his courage together, then spoke.

 

“Dr Leavitt?”

 

“Yeah?” The man responded.

 

“What does the implant do, exactly?” Phil was trying to tread lightly while keeping his questions relevant, choosing his words carefully.

 

“I already told you, Philip. They scan your brain, collect data, and send it to the labs.”

 

“I know. But do they do anything else?” Phil was aware he was treading on thin ice, but it was too late to take the words back.

 

“No.” The single word was laced with a hint of sharpness and suspicion. “Why do you ask?”

 

“Just wondering.” Even to Phil’s ears, the words sounded like a lie.

 

Dr Leavitt studied him for a moment, making Phil feel uncomfortable under his scrutinising gaze. Then a light went on in the older man’s eyes, as though he had connected two pieces of a puzzle.

 

“You were listening in to a conversation last night.” It wasn’t a question, nor was it an accusation. It was simply a statement, and it hung in midair for a second or two.

 

“Yes,” Phil admitted, thinking that withholding information would only get him in more trouble. “I didn’t mean to, though! I just heard my name when I was walking past, and I was curious.” As soon as he said the words, he regretted them immensely. He should have kept his knowledge a secret. Now WICKED knew he knew, and they would not be happy with that.

 

“What exactly did you hear?” Dr Leavitt’s words were stern, and Phil hesitated, wishing he’d just kept quiet. Why did he have to be so curious?

 

When Phil didn’t reply, Dr Leavitt took him by the shoulders and, a little louder than the time before, asked, “Philip. What did you hear?”

 

“I heard they’re going to implement me in the Maze Trials, and put me in the second stage if there is one, but I don’t know what any of that means, and I know that the implants work in some way, and there’s a girl who’s close to figuring that out, but I don’t know how they work or who the girl is, I swear!” Phil spoke quickly, trying to pull away, out of Dr Leavitt’s reach. After a few seconds of contemplation, the older man took his hands off Phil’s shoulders.

 

Nodding slowly, Dr Leavitt said, “Okay. I apologise for taking your shoulders in such an uncivil matter. If you’ll excuse me, I have to make a call.” He stood up and went to the door, exiting the room to the hallway outside.

 

Phil resisted the urge to find out who Dr Leavitt was talking to; listening to others’ conversations had gotten him in trouble only last night, and besides, it was just wrong. He waited for Dr Leavitt to return, wondering if he was going to be punished again. He’d managed to stay out of that chair for so long, and now he could possibly be facing it again, just because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

 

A minute or so later, Dr Leavitt returned, his face unreadable.

 

“Alright, the doctors should be here very soon. I spoke to your father just now, discussing the procedure you’re about to have performed on you. He just wanted to know how you were doing. Nothing to worry about.” Immediately, Phil knew he wasn’t telling the truth - his father would never just want to know how he was doing. There had to be a reason for the call to have taken place.

 

He didn’t have time to dwell on it, though, because at that moment the door opened and a man and a woman walked in. They were both dressed in white coats, just like the rest of the WICKED staff.

 

“Ah, excellent.” Dr Leavitt smiled politely when he saw the pair. “Philip, this is Dr Allen and Dr McCarron, the doctors who will be performing your surgery today. I must go now, as I have to get back to the labs, but I wish you good luck on your operation - not that you’ll need it, of course. You’re in completely safe hands. Goodbye.”

 

Dr Leavitt began to make his way out of the hospital room, stopping to say something quietly to the doctors. Despite trying not to listen, Phil heard exactly what he said - they were only standing about five metres away from him.

 

“You have Dr Lester’s authorisation to wipe his memory of last night’s events, in addition to putting the implant in him. It has been agreed that Philip having those memories will have negative effects in the long run. Best of luck.” With that, Dr Leavitt opened the door and walked out, leaving Phil alone with the two strangers, who approached the bed on which Phil sat.

 

Phil was scared by Dr Leavitt’s words. Wipe his memory? He hadn’t even known WICKED could do that. He didn’t want them to do that. His memories were what made Phil himself. They were private to him, and he didn’t want any of them to be taken from him. The thought of having someone looking inside his head at all his memories and taking some away made Phil want to escape - he knew he couldn’t fight.

 

“Good morning Philip.” The woman gave him a polite smile, almost robotic just like all the other WICKED workers. “As Dr Leavitt mentioned, my name is Dr Allen, and this is my assistant, Dr McCarron.” She motioned to the man standing on her left. “We’re going to be performing your operation today. Don’t worry, everything will run smoothly.”

 

“Are you going to take my memories away?” The question was out before Phil could stop it, and a flicker of hesitation passed over Dr Allen’s face, quickly masked.

 

“No, of course not, Philip. We’re going to be putting an implant in your brain which will enable WICKED to collect data more efficiently and more often.” She sounded as though she were reciting words from a pre-memorised script.

 

“But Dr Leavitt just said-”

 

“Never mind what Dr Leavitt just said.” The man spoke up. “All we’re going to do is perform a tiny, necessary operation on you. This talk of memories being taken is nonsense.”

 

Phil opened his mouth to protest, but Dr Allen cut him off before he could begin.

 

“Now, Philip, if you could lie down on the bed for me.” After she spoke, she went over to the other side of the bed, standing by the trolley. “Dr McCarron, can you turn the monitors on?”

 

The man obliged, and there was a whirring sound as the blank screens came to life, displaying diagrams, lines, and other things Phil didn’t understand.

 

Dr Allen took Phil’s hand and attached a small clamp to his finger, causing the flat, horizontal line on one of the screens to start dipping up and down in linear, regular motions, a steady beeping sounding at regular intervals, showing Phil’s pulse. Phil moved his gaze away from the screens as Dr Allen started speaking to him.

 

“Now, the operation shouldn’t take too long, but you’ll be out for quite a while - we don’t want to you to feel your head being cut open, of course. You’ll wake up sometime this afternoon, or evening, depending on how long it takes the anesthesia to wear off. Sound good?”

 

Phil nodded, not because he agreed to the operation, or having his memory erased, but because he had no choice. Instead of openly rebelling, he decided to hold on to whatever they were trying to take. Dr Leavitt had said they were going to take last night’s events away from him, so he pictured exactly what had happened, from being dismissed from the lab to his father catching him. The memories were clear as day. There was no way WICKED could possibly take them from him.

 

Dr Allen turned around, arranging some equipment on the top of the trolley as Dr McCarron walked from the opposite side of the bed to stand next to her.

 

“I believe we’re all set,” Dr Allen announced with a smile. “Don’t worry, Philip, you’ll be okay.”

 

At her words, Dr McCarron took a syringe filled with liquid from the trolley; Phil assumed it must be the anesthesia.

 

“Hold still, Philip,” he ordered. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

 

As Dr McCarron leaned towards Phil, the boy thought of last night, and the conversation he’d overheard. He didn’t know how they could take his memories away from him. Phil was scared and confused, but that didn’t mean there was any way he’d let WICKED do whatever they planned to do to his mind.

 

The needle pierced his neck, and the liquid entered his bloodstream. For a second or two, Phil remained awake, thinking of last night’s conversation, desperate not to forget. Then he felt the sensation of falling down a dark hole, and thought no more.


	14. 225.1.10, 6:04PM

When Phil came to, the first thing he noticed was a strange sensation in his head, as though something new was there. For a few seconds, he was confused, then he remembered the implant. Opening his eyes, he was greeted with the sight of Dr Leavitt sitting in the chair by his bed. He seemed as though he had been waiting for Phil to regain consciousness.

 

“Oh good, you’re awake. How are you feeling?” Dr Leavitt asked.

 

Phil tried to answer, his dry mouth taking a few seconds to form the words. “My head feels… weird.”

 

“That’s completely normal; it’s bound to feel a bit foreign at first, having something new in your head, but you’ll get used to it before you know it. Soon enough, you won’t even notice it’s there.”

 

“Okay,” Phil replied. “How long until I can go?”

 

“We’re going to keep you here for a couple of days, just to ensure there are no complications and to give your brain time to adjust. Obviously, there shouldn’t be any complications, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Besides, it’s a rule that you have to stay here for at least forty-eight hours following a surgery like this. It’s around six in the evening, by the way. Same day as when you went to sleep. The anesthesia kept you under for a while, so that you wouldn’t feel the worst of the pain.”

 

Phil tried to nod, but the movement sent a jolt of pain flashing through his head, causing him to feel dizzy and disoriented for a moment.

 

“Try not to move around too much, you’ve just had your head cut open.” Dr Leavitt smiled at what Phil thought was intended to be a joke.

 

Phil didn’t respond, closing his eyes. Perhaps the anesthesia hadn’t worn off completely, but for some reason, he felt rather relaxed. He tried to cast his mind back to that morning, before the operation had taken place. What had happened? Now that Phil thought about it, he had an odd sense of trying to remember something. That didn’t make sense though - why would he feel the need to hold onto something, as though it were going to be taken from him? It wasn’t as if having an operation would cause him to forget.

 

Something was wrong, though, an intangible problem hovering just out of Phil’s grasp, just far enough that he couldn’t know what it was, only that it existed. After a couple of minutes of lasering his focus, trying to figure out what the problem was, it hit him - he couldn’t remember anything that had happened that morning. Nor, when he tried, could he remember the previous night. As he tried to go through everything that had happened the previous day, his memories began to become unclear as the time edged towards evening. However, everything before that was fine. It was as if the past twenty-four hours had never happened, as if he’d skipped straight from yesterday morning to the current moment. Even though logically he knew that was impossible, and there had to be a reasonable explanation, being unable to recall certain events was a disorienting feeling, and one that left Phil uneasy. Had the operation damaged his brain somehow? Had something gone wrong?

 

“Dr Leavitt?” Phil asked cautiously.

 

“Yes?”

 

He paused. “I can’t remember anything that happened today. Or last night. Why can’t I remember anything?”

 

A shadow of an expression passed over Dr Leavitt’s face, so quickly that Phil wasn’t able to see what it was. The man quickly regained his posture.

 

“That’s completely normal for an operation of this type - involving the brain, that is. It’s entirely possible that there’s been some slight damage to your short term memory. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.”

 

“How can you be sure?”

 

“Well, if something serious involving memory loss had happened, it would be obvious - you seem to remember who and where you are, what you’re doing here, who I am, and things like that,” Dr Leavitt reasoned.

 

“That makes sense. Can you tell me what happened last night? Why am I having this implant put in?”

 

“Sure. Last night, nothing out of the ordinary happened that I know of. This morning, I came to get you from the labs at around ten past eight. I told you about the operation and we came up here, where we met the doctors, and they carried out the operation. The implant’s simply for collecting data from your brain and sending it directly to the labs, meaning you won’t have to have as many scans or tests now.”

 

Something about Dr Leavitt’s words felt strange to Phil, as if there were something the older man wasn’t telling him. Then again, how would Phil know if the account he’d just been given was right or not if he couldn’t remember what actually happened? He decided Dr Leavitt was telling the truth. After all, why would he lie?

 

“Alright,” Phil agreed.

 

“Why don’t you get some rest?” Dr Leavitt suggested. “You’re going to need it so you can heal up faster.”

 

Phil obliged, shutting his eyes, letting himself drift on the remaining traces of anesthesia in his system. What Dr Leavitt had said made perfect sense. Something minor had caused his short term memory to be damaged, that was all. The only reason Dr Leavitt’s words had sounded made-up was because Phil didn’t remember it happening. There was really no reason for him to feel off. Nothing to worry about, as Dr Leavitt always said.


	15. 225.5.11, 7:16PM

Phil lay awake in bed, trying to ignore the persistent headache he felt. It was as if someone was inside of his head, punching him repeatedly right in the centre of his forehead. He hadn’t had much of an appetite, leaving half his dinner uneaten.

 

As he stared at the ceiling, the pain grew, a pounding ache in his skull that made it hard to think. Rolling over onto his side, he tried to make himself more comfortable, but to no avail. He could do nothing but lie there and hope the pain would die out eventually.

 

Something buzzed in Phil’s head.

 

His hand flew to his temple. He hadn’t heard it, but he’d felt it - a buzz in the middle of his throbbing headache. What had happened? Probably just a side effect of the headache. Maybe something had gone wrong with the implant he’d been given a few months ago? His head had healed surprisingly quickly after the operation, but maybe there were some long term effects he hadn’t accounted for. He’d ask about it in the morning.

 

He closed his eyes, trying to go to sleep, but the buzz came again, stronger this time. While it didn’t hurt, the feeling was foreign, and had Phil on edge. He sat up, looking around the room as though trying to find the source of the feeling, even though the vibrations were coming from directly inside his skull.

 

Phil wondered what could have caused the strange sensation, and as he did so, a horrible thought crept into his mind. What if he wasn’t immune, like he’d always been told? What if he had the Flare? It certainly wasn’t normal for someone to feel things like this in their body. Thinking of the Crank pits, he shuddered. Was he going to end up like them?

 

_ Phil? _

 

This time, there was no buzzing, but instead, a voice. He heard it, but at the same time, he didn’t hear it. It was an unexplainable sensation that felt like the buzzing had formed itself into a solid word, spoken by a familiar-sounding voice. He couldn’t remember whose voice it was, though - hearing it was strange enough without trying to figure out who it belonged to.

 

_ Phil, is that you? It’s me, Teresa. _

 

Phil hadn’t seen Teresa in over a year, and for a moment, he felt a sense of happiness at talking to her again. Then he realised something: there was no way this was real. He had to be insane. He’d caught the Flare. Hearing voices that weren’t really there was the most well-known sign of madness. There was no way Teresa was talking to him in his head.

 

_ Phil, can you hear me? _

 

“What…?” Phil spoke aloud. Nothing that was happening made any kind of sense.

 

_ I’m getting through to you, Phil, I’m sure of it. I can speak to Thomas too. _

 

Had Thomas experienced this too? Was he in his room, hearing - feeling - Teresa speak to him? Or was this whole encounter nothing more than a figment of his imagination?

 

_ Phil, is this working? _

 

He was insane. Or was this real? It felt real, but that was a sign of insanity. He stood up, one hand resting against the wall for balance.

 

_ Can you hear me?  _ Can you hear me?

 

The second time, she shouted the words, a series of thunks in Phil’s mind, and it took all his effort to stop himself from staggering back. Everything about this was wrong. He shouldn’t be hearing voices in his head, and he most definitely shouldn’t be wanting to respond.

 

_ Phil, I know you can’t talk back. I know there’s no way you can tell me if you can hear me or not. But soon I’ll come and find you. We may not have seen each other in a while, but I know you still remember where my room is, and I still remember yours. I’ll find you, Phil, maybe tomorrow. _

 

Her words sparked something in Phil. She was right - he did still remember where her room was. He’d considered, on many an occasion, going to find her and Thomas, but the risks had always been too great. The chance he’d be caught was too high, and that would mean getting himself and his friends in trouble. Now, though, it was different. He had to know whether what he was experiencing was reality. He’d never be able to wait until tomorrow. He tried to talk back to Teresa in the same way she was speaking to him, but he had no idea how.

 

_ You’re trying to reach me, aren’t you? You’ll get it, Phil, just keep trying. _

 

Weighing up the idea of finding Teresa for a moment or two, Phil came to a decision. He was going to find Teresa, and find out what was happening. If it was real, he’d know, and if he was insane… well, at least his curiosity would be put at rest. He put his hand on the handle and opened the door, looking left and right to confirm the hall was empty before stepping out, closing the door behind him.

 

For a second, Phil hesitated, making sure he couldn’t hear anyone coming. Was this a bad decision? It was too late to turn back now, anyway. Not wasting another moment, he darted to the end of the hallway, moving stealthily round corners, running down corridors, avoiding the security cameras wherever possible.

 

Phil ran the familiar route,remembering as he did so the times he’d walked down these hallways to Thomas and Teresa’s doors, coming to find them so they could walk down to the maintenance rooms together. For a moment, he pictured himself back in the maintenance room, surrounded by his friends. The time they’d had had been short-lived but sweet, and Phil cherished those memories above any others in his bleak life. Despite all that was happening, a faint smile crept onto his face. Whatever the outcome, he was going to see one of his friends again. Maybe Thomas too.

 

After a few minutes, he reached the door with the nameplate that read Teresa’s name. Reaching out for the door handle, he hesitated. What if what he’d heard wasn’t real after all? What would happen if he opened the door and Teresa had no idea why he was there? Surely it wasn’t all his imagination? Again, hearing voices was a well-known sign of madness.

 

Hardening his resolve, Phil turned the handle, quickly pushing the door open to reveal Teresa sitting on her bed. She smiled widely when she saw him.

 

“You heard me!” She exclaimed. “I knew it would work!”

 

“Teresa, what… what did you do?” Phil was beyond relieved to learn that the whole encounter had been real after all, but he was still confused.

 

“I figured it out.” She said simply, the cryptic statement ringing a quiet bell in the very back of Phil’s mind, as though he’d heard something like that before. He didn’t know where, though.

 

“Figured what out?” Phil asked.

 

Suddenly, he heard a shout from down the hallway. “Who’s there?”

 

Teresa’s eyes widened, as did Phil’s. “Go,” she instructed. “Before you get caught.”

 

“But…” Phil began to protest, but knew it was a bad idea to stay and risk being found out by WICKED. “Okay. But how do I do… what you did?”

 

_ You’ll work it out, _ Teresa said inside his head.  _ Now get out of here, before you’re found. _

 

“Still not used to you doing that,” Phil smiled, before turning and shutting the door behind him. Once he’d checked the coast was clear, he ran to the end of the hallway. Not a moment too soon, either - as soon as he’d turned the corner, he heard footsteps approaching the place where he’d been standing seconds earlier.

 

“Everything okay, Teresa?” An unfamiliar voice called through the girl’s door.

 

Not wanting to stick around and get caught, Phil starting running as quietly as he could, retracing his steps until he ended up back in his room. He lay down on his bed, going over what had just happened. In the space of less than ten minutes, he’d discovered his friend he hadn’t seen in months could speak to him telepathically, ran to her room, and then almost been caught by WICKED’s guards. All in all, not an average night for Phil.

 

He tried to speak to Teresa, to find out what had happened after he’d gone, but he had no idea how to make the words reach her.

 

_ I can feel you trying to talk to me, _ Teresa said, sounding amused.  _ Don’t worry, you’ll get it. I’ll talk to you every night until you do. Try talking to Thomas too, that might work. Goodnight, Phil. _

 

This time, Phil didn’t try to answer mentally. “Goodnight, Teresa,” he whispered.


	16. 225.5.12, 7:42PM

The next day passed at a crawl for Phil. He’d done his job, working on the Maze walls in the command room, but he’d been aching to get out, so he could be alone and try to talk to Teresa. After what seemed like eternity, he’d been let out for the night, eating his dinner quickly so he could get back to his room and attempt to contact her. So far, he’d had no luck, and she hadn’t spoken to him yet either.

 

He reached out, straining his mind to try and get to Teresa, and as he did so, she spoke back.

 

_ You’re trying to reach me, aren’t you, Phil? _

 

How had she known it was him? Then again, how had he recognised her voice the first time she’d spoken to him? All this was still unfamiliar to Phil, but on some level, parts of it just made sense. The strangeness of having someone speak to him inside his head, and of trying to respond, didn’t escape Phil.

 

_ It’s the implants, Phil. The ones they put in our heads. It took me months to figure out what was different. I didn’t know you had one too, at first, but I could feel you there, you know? _

 

A sense of déjà vu became present in Phil’s mind, as though what Teresa was telling him was something he’d heard before. That was impossible, though. Besides, he’d thought the implants were just for collecting data. It seemed that WICKED had lied again. Phil wasn’t even surprised anymore.

 

He focused on Teresa, thinking of her, visualising her, trying to project the same phrase to her over and over.

 

_ Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? _ Somehow, Phil knew he wasn’t getting through to her, but he kept trying, refusing to give up.

 

\---------------

 

Night after night, Phil delved into the depths of his mind, searching through his consciousness for whatever made this strange ability work. The task took forever, which was frustrating, but it was fulfilling. It might have irritated him, not being able to solve something, but on the bright side, Teresa was there, encouraging him.

 

Tirelessly, he worked at the task, eventually learning to let go of his perception of thoughts being something black and white, uniform, boxed-in. Once he managed to think of his brain as a world of possibilities, rather than simply an organ, he was able to focus on his goal more. In time, he was able to pin down the part of his mind that didn’t quite belong.

 

_ Can you hear me? _

 

Still nothing. Somehow, he wasn’t getting through. The reason for this was a mystery to Phil; he was trying so hard to communicate with Teresa, and nothing was working. He tried to analyse the problem, to get to the root of the issue, and after a couple of minutes, he realised what was going wrong. It wasn’t working because a part of him, the more logical side, was holding himself back, telling him that he couldn’t do this, that telepathy was impossible. It obviously wasn’t, though, otherwise he wouldn’t be hearing Teresa.

 

He could do this.

 

Clearing his mind completely, Phil took a deep breath, then tried again, focusing his entire mind on Teresa. He cleared his mind, imagining her and only her, then thought of the words he wanted to say appearing in her head.

 

_ Can you hear me? Can you hear me? _

 

This time, he knew Teresa had received his message. It had just barely gotten through to her, as if his mind was filled with static but a voice had managed to break through the white noise. All the same, he’d made contact. He smiled in the darkness, a sense of victory filling him.

 

_ Yes!  _ Phil felt Teresa beam. _ I can hear you! It’s like you’re speaking from far away, though. You can do this, Phil, just keep trying. _

 

And so, night after night, Phil kept trying.

 

\---------------

 

Eight days after Teresa had first spoken to Phil, something happened. He was trying to break through the metaphorical white noise, like trying to tune a radio to the right station. He’d managed to speak to Teresa twice now, but both times, it had just barely worked. Although the problem was mentally stimulating, it was frustrating not being able to do something which came so easily to Teresa.

 

_ Can you hear me? Teresa, can you hear me? _

 

Nothing. He was trying so hard to send her the words, so why wasn’t he managing to successfully do so?

 

_ Try and pinpoint all your focus on the phrase. Visualise it appearing in my head. _ Teresa encouraged him.  _ Come on, Phil, you can do this. _

 

_ I’m trying, _ thought Phil, frustrated.  _ Nothing’s working. _

 

He felt a stunned silence from Teresa, her shock clear to him even without words. Had something happened to her? Was she okay? What had happened?

 

It hit him just before she spoke to him.

 

_ You did it! I heard you, loud and clear! _ Somehow, she mentally high fived him, yet another one of those little things Phil couldn’t explain. He thought about what he’d just done - this time, even if purely by accident, the words hadn’t exactly travelled to Teresa’s mind from his, which was what he had been trying to make them do. This time, he’d managed to somehow speak the words in his own mind and Teresa’s mind at the same time. He tried it again, replicating what he’d done before.

 

_ Teresa, can you still hear me? _

 

_ I can still hear you! You’ve got it, Phil! _

 

A sense of relieved glee flooded through Phil. This problem he’d been working on night after night had finally been solved. Somehow, he knew that he’d figured it out once and for all, as opposed to the times when he’d just barely made it through.

 

_ I guess a little frustration was all I needed, _ he grinned. The way of speaking was still a little foreign to him, and took a lot of effort, but he was getting used to it.

 

_ Well done, Phil, I’m proud of you. I knew you’d get it. _

 

_ Thanks. Hey, what about Thomas? I haven’t tried to speak to him yet - I’ve been to busy trying to learn how to do this weird thing. _

 

_ Thomas has just about managed it - more specifically, he’s just about managed to communicate properly. The first time he got through, it felt like a metal pole was being slammed between my eyeballs. _ She laughed.

 

_ Wow, _ Phil laughed with her.  _ That sounds fun. I’m going to try and talk to him. It’s kind of exciting, you know? Having a whole new thing you can do. There are just so many possibilities. I may not exactly know how to use those possibilities, but they’re there all the same. _

 

_ I know what you mean. Go for it. Good luck! Oh, and try and focus on Thomas’... presence in your mind. I know it sounds a little weird, but just trust me, okay? You’ll know how to do it when you manage it. _

 

_ Okay. Thanks, Teresa. _

 

With that, Phil removed his focus from Teresa, following her instructions and trying to find Thomas’ presence, whatever that meant. Once again, he dove into his mind, looking not for the words to say, as he had been before, but for the person to say them to. It was like walking through the dark and trying to find someone who was silent. Determined for this to work, Phil closed his eyes, putting all his attention on the part of his mind that allowed him to speak to Teresa. He looked a little bit further this time, and felt exactly what Teresa had described - somehow, he knew that Thomas was there, and he could connect with him. Visualising his friend, Phil took a deep breath, putting all his effort into sending a single word, the same way he’d spoken to Teresa minutes before.

 

_ Thomas? _

 

Instinctively, he knew Thomas had heard him. He felt his friend’s surprised happiness and smiled.

 

_ Phil? Is that you? _

 

_ Yeah, it’s me. _

 

Thomas grinned; Phil felt the expression without seeing it.  _ Hey, Phil. So you can do this too? _

 

_ Yeah. It was a bit of a shock, hearing Teresa for the first time. Thought I was going insane. I’m really glad I wasn’t. _

 

_ Me too. What have you been up to? I haven’t seen you in ages. _

 

_ Just WICKED stuff. They have me working on the Maze, designing the walls. It sucks that I can’t see you guys, though. _

 

_ Yeah, it does. I haven’t seen anyone except Teresa since the Crank pits. I tried to sneak out a few times, but I think the guards have security cameras on our doors. Either that or they’re always watching us - I can’t get two steps without one of them telling me to go back to my room ‘for my own good’.  _ Thomas rolled his eyes.

 

_ We’ll see each other again, one day. I hope. Someday we’ll meet up again, find the others, go to the maintenance room. Things will go back to how they were before. _

 

_ I hope so. Hey, at least we can talk to each other now. We aren’t on our own anymore. _

 

_ That’s something, at least. _

 

\---------------

 

Weeks passed, then months, then a whole year, each day the same as the last. Phil gradually got used to the telepathy, and spoke to Thomas and Teresa often. Soon, it became almost effortless. Being able to speak to his friends, even if only in his head, made him feel a little less lonely in the life WICKED had modelled for him. Over a year after being assigned the task of designing the maze walls, he had finally finished, and had been assigned the new task of helping program the false sky. When it was finished, it would look like a normal sky to those below - day, night, phases of the moon, stars, the passing of the sun, everything. Although he was on his own at the moment, forming the basic code for the illusion, he had been told that Thomas and Teresa would be joining the project soon.

 

He still missed his friends a lot, though. While being able to speak to them telepathically was comforting, he longed for just a few minutes to physically be with them. Not just Thomas and Teresa, either; while he’d been able to communicate with Thomas and Teresa, he hadn’t heard a single trace of Dan, Newt, Alby or Minho since the Crank pits. The memory of that night still caused Phil to shudder. It was the only thing holding him back from going to his friends’ rooms to find them - what if they were sent down there again? What if, this time, they were put inside the cages?

 

So Phil’s life dragged on, days stretching out into one another. He spoke to Thomas and Teresa, he worked on the Maze sky; he existed, all the while holding onto the memory of the time he had truly lived.

 

And then, one night, things changed.


	17. 226.5.17, 2:26AM

_ Phil. _

 

Phil came to, rubbing his eyes, then opening them, met with darkness. He yawned, looking over at the clock on his bedside table. The blue digits read 2:26. There was no way either Thomas or Teresa had spoken to him this early. It had probably just been a dream.

 

_ Phil, are you awake? _ It was Thomas.

 

_ Yeah, I’m awake. _ Phil spoke back, the way of speaking natural to him by now.  _ What are you doing awake? It’s two in the morning. _

 

_ Open your door, _ Thomas instructed.

 

In an instant, Phil was fully awake. His eyes widened, hoping that Thomas meant what Phil thought he meant. Now he was more awake, he could sense that Teresa was there too - another thing Phil liked about the telepathy was that even when someone wasn’t speaking, you could still feel them there, as though they were in the room.

 

Climbing out of bed, Phil almost ran to his door, opening it. In front of him stood the two people he’d thought he’d never see again.

 

For a moment, he looked at them, lost for words; suddenly, he surprised himself by hugging them both tightly, hoping to somehow make up for all the time they’d lost.

 

_ It’s so good to see you guys. I missed you. _ He spoke in their minds - he’d grown used to it, it was natural by this point.

 

“Missed you too, Phil,” Thomas whispered out loud. Although it sounded like him when Thomas spoke in his mind, it was a relief to hear his normal voice after so long spent without it.

 

“What are you guys doing here?” Phil asked, speaking out loud to them for the first time in over a year.

 

“I set up some loops on the security cameras. We’re going exploring.” Teresa smiled. “We’re going to find the others, and look for those people from Group B - Aris and Rachel - as well. You know, the ones who are supposed to be separate, just like us. We have to move fast, though, or the loops will run out. Are you coming?”

 

Phil didn’t even need to consider the offer. He stepped out of his room, silently shutting the door behind him. “Definitely.”

 

_ Brilliant, _ Teresa said, this time telepathically.  _ Let’s go. Oh, and we should stick to the telepathy for now. The cameras might be set up, but someone might hear us. We can speak if we find one of our friends, but only in whispers. Sound good? _

 

_ Sounds excellent, _ Phil answered.

 

_ Come on, _ instructed Thomas.  _ First stop, Aris and Rachel. _

 

The three made their way through the silent corridors. A few turns, a trip in the lift, a few more turns, always pausing to look around corners, making sure no one was wandering the halls.

 

_ You’re magic, Teresa, _ Phil said in awe. _ How did you manage to stop the cameras? _

 

_ She’s a computer nerd, that’s how, _ Thomas laughed.

 

_ WICKED teaches me a lot about computers. I know more than they think, _ she answered.

 

Eventually, they reached the sector of Group B. Phil was excited to meet Aris and Rachel - he’d heard people talking about them. He knew they were working on a maze for Group B, and he knew they were meant to be very intelligent. Beyond that, though, he knew nothing about them.

 

Aris and Rachel had placards on their doors just like the ones on Phil, Thomas and Teresa’s doors. However, when Teresa knocked on Aris’ door, there was no answer. They tried Rachel’s and again received no response.

 

_ These guys are either heavy sleepers, extremely obedient, or they’re out breaking the rules just like us, _ Teresa remarked.

 

Thomas nodded.  _ Oh well. Should we go say hi to Newt and the others now? _

 

_ Works for me, _ Phil agreed, feeling anticipation and excitement at the thought of finally seeing his friends again.

 

Teresa nodded, and Thomas took the lead. Together, the trio made their way through the complex, winding through halls and stairways, glad for the low lighting. Teresa communicated the pattern she’d set up with the camera loops to figure out the best route, and where to stop and wait. Finally they turned the last corner before the Group A sector. A sight in their path made them stop dead. Thomas sucked in a breath. There was a young boy in the hall; he had to be only seven or eight years old, and was a little on the pudgy side. He sat with his back against the wall, arms wrapped around his knees. Tears covered his face. When he saw Thomas and Teresa, he went as pale as the moon and jumped to his feet.

 

“I’m s-s-sorry,” the boy stuttered. “P-p-please don’t tell on me.”

 

_ Hey, it’s okay. _ Phil tried to speak to the boy telepathically, then realised it was no use. “Hey, it’s okay, don’t be scared. We’re not going to hurt you.”

 

Thomas slowly crossed the distance between him and the boy, putting a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. “It’s okay, man, we’re just like you. Nothing to worry about.”

 

“What’s your name?” Teresa asked. Their entire plan was now in jeopardy, but the kid seemed so young, so innocent, so scared.

 

The boy burst into another round of tears, then answered through one of his sobs. “They’re making me call myself Charles.”

 

Thomas shook his head. “Well, that’s lame. We’re going to call you Chuck.”


	18. 226.5.17, 2:42AM

“Are you staying in the barracks, with the others?” Phil asked the boy - Chuck.

 

“Barracks? No, I’ve got my own room. At least for now.”

 

Phil exchanged looks with Thomas and Teresa, knowing what they were thinking even without the telepathy. Why did this kid have his own room?

 

“Is it close?” Teresa asked. “Maybe we can go in there to talk.” She glanced at the other two again. “We have some other friends we can get. Would that help you feel a little better?”

 

Chuck nodded, relief filling his eyes. The poor kid had probably thought he’d never have friends again. Phil thought back to how he’d felt before he’d met his friends, and he felt a deep sympathy for Chuck - loneliness was an awful feeling to have. Chuck turned around and led them to his room. Once they arrived, Teresa went to get Dan, Newt, Alby and Minho. According to her set-up of camera loops, she told them, they had a few hours before they needed to be back in their rooms.

 

Chuck lay on his bed, and Thomas pulled the desk chair to within a couple of feet, sitting down. Phil moved towards the bed, leaning against the wall.

 

“How long since they brought you in here?” Thomas asked.

 

“A couple of weeks. I don’t know if my parents knew about it. I don’t even know if they had the Flare!” Chuck started sobbing again, and Thomas and Phil looked at each other, neither of them knowing what to do.

 

“It’s okay,” Thomas said, attempting to make Chuck feel better. “Teresa, Phil and I have been here for years. You get kind of used to it. I know they can be jerks when it comes to renaming you, but after that it gets a lot better. As long as you basically do what they tell you to do.” At Thomas’ words, Phil thought of the stories he’d been told by Dan and Thomas, about how WICKED had forced them to change their names - they’d used the same punishment for those who refused to change their names as they’d used for Phil when he rebelled. Phil’s name had been chosen by his mother, a woman he’d never known, but missed all the same.

 

Chuck didn’t seem too appeased by Thomas’ attempts to be comforting. A few more tears trickled down his face. “What’re they gonna do to me?” He sniffed back yet more tears. “So far, they’ve pricked me with needles about a million times.”

 

“Well, yeah. They’ll be doing that to you for years. You get used to it.” Thomas paused.

 

_ Don’t tell him about the implants, you’ll scare him, _ Phil said in Thomas’ mind.

 

_ I wasn’t planning to, don’t worry, _ Thomas answered.  _ And don’t do this in front of people! _

 

“But most of what happens is like school,” Thomas continued, acting as though he hadn’t just spoken to Phil in his head. “You’ll go to classes, learn lots of stuff. It’s fun, actually. Plus you’ll make new friends.” Phil remembered the classes he used to attend, from when he was around three or four to when he was nine years old. He still had lessons two days a week, but mostly, he worked on the Maze. He supposed their experiences were very different, seeing as WICKED considered him a WICKED worker, albeit one who was younger and therefore easier to order around, no matter how uncomfortable Phil was with that label.

 

Phil wondered again why Chuck was in a single room, rather than staying in the barracks with the other boys in Group A. Alby had said they all slept in the barracks, so what made Chuck different?

 

Chuck sat up on the edge of his bed, curious about what Thomas and Phil could tell him, and started firing off questions.

 

“Why do you think we’re immune? Did your parents get the Flare? Did you see them go crazy? Did you have any brothers or sisters?” A few other inquiries flew out, Chuck not allowing them a single second to answer any of them. Luckily, they were saved by the door opening. In walked Alby, then Minho, then Dan, then Newt, then Teresa.

 

“What’s up, Tommy, Phil?” Newt exclaimed, his face filled with genuine happiness at the pleasant surprise that had been sprung upon him. Phil couldn’t remember exactly how long it had been since the last time he’d seen Newt - or the others, for that matter. “You guys look bloody fantastic for three in the morning.”

 

“Phil! Thomas!” Dan grinned upon seeing them. “It’s great to see you again.” He approached Phil, pulling him into a quick hug, before doing the same to Thomas.

 

“Who’s the new kid?” Minho asked.

 

Alby, a bit more thoughtful, went up to Chuck and shook his hand. “What’s your name? Mine’s Alby.”

 

“I’m Chuck. I just got here.”

 

Alby nodded. “Cool, man. They’ll probably move you into the barracks with us soon. It’ll be fun, don’t worry. This place is all fun and games.”

 

Phil had never heard such kind lies.

 

The next couple of hours passed with light conversation, lots of laughs, and dreams of the future that no one actually expected to happen. For a while, anyway, it was nice to pretend, to relax, to let themselves think they _ had _ a future and could do whatever they wished with it.

 

It was the best night Phil had had since he’d first met his friends. He laughed even more than he’d laughed the first night he’d met Dan, Newt, Alby, and Minho; he laughed more than the first night Thomas and Teresa had been there. He also felt at peace as they talked, often over each other, many times needing to repeat what they’d said because of being drowned out. Chuck’s demeanour had gone from blurry eyes and a tear-streaked face to the the joy and wonder of a kid at a birthday party. That made Phil feel good.

 

He’d missed this. He’d missed being with his friends, escaping WICKED for a few hours, feeling on top of the world, joyful, free. Maybe, just maybe, this could become a regular occurrence once again.

 

Minho was making a joke, but Newt cut him off, looking at Thomas, who seemed to be deep in thought. “Tommy?” Thomas looked at Newt, coming back to reality. “I can see your wheels spinning up there.” Newt tapped the side of his head. “Care to share?”

 

Thomas shrugged. “I don’t know. We keep… well,  _ I _ keep thinking that WICKED did something terrible by stealing us from our families.”

 

“Yeah,” Alby prompted him to continue, although the look on his face suggested that he somehow knew what Thomas was going to say next.

 

“But I’m not so sure that’s true.”

 

“So WICKED isn’t bad?” Chuck asked, perking up. There was so much hope in the boy’s voice that Phil wanted to run over and hug him, and never let go, so Chuck would never have to find out about the things WICKED did.

 

Thomas looked around at them all, then looked at Chuck. “A man once gave us a message that we’ll never forget: WICKED is good. I think our lives might have a lot more purpose than we could ever know. I think we need to remember to look at the big picture.”

 

Although Phil’s opinion of WICKED was a little different, he could see where Thomas was coming from, and admired his astute observation.

 

_ That’s some deep thinking, _ Teresa said telepathically.  _ Make you look cute. _ Phil rolled his eyes mentally, knowing the other two would get the message.

 

_ Don’t, not in front of the others! _ Thomas shouted the words, and Teresa flinched slightly.

 

“Thomas, dude.” Alby spoke. “There you go again, drifting off. Staring into space like an idiot.”

 

Thomas paused, looking as though he were searching for the right words. “I just think we need to keep things in perspective. We’re safe, we’re warm, we’re fed. We’re protected from the weather and the Cranks.”

 

“You make it sound like a bloody holiday,” Newt murmured.

 

“It could be a lot worse,” Thomas countered. “Not to mention the small fact that we’re trying to help save the entire human race.”

 

“And that means you, Newt,” Alby added. “I don’t want to watch you go all Crank on me someday.”

 

That sobered Newt right up. Even Tersa looked sad. The lighthearted, cheery atmosphere had vanished, leaving a solemn feeling hanging over them all as they thought of what the world had come to.

 

Minho, who usually had a lot to say, had been quiet for a while, sitting in the corner, his back against the wall, staring at the floor. Now, though, he looked at Thomas and stood up.

 

“Make up all the fantasies about WICKED you want. Tell yourselves this is all a good cause, that they treat us well. I’m not buying it, though. It looks like I’m the only one still working on…” Minho stopped mid-sentence, shaking his head. “I’m heading back to my room now. Later.” He walked towards the door, opening it before anyone had time to recover.

 

“What are you talking about?” Dan managed to find his voice before Minho disappeared.

 

Minho had his back to them, but he didn’t even turn his head to answer.

 

“We used to talk about escaping before Thomas and Teresa came around. Remember that?” Phil remembered. He’d thought those plans had been nothing but talk, just a fantasy, forgotten as time went by. “Well, I never stopped thinking about it. Or planning for it. We should be here by our own choice, not by theirs. Not treated like prisoners. I hope you guys’ll come with me. When I’m ready.”

 

Then he left, shutting the door behind him.


	19. 226.9.3, 12:53PM

For a long time, no one heard anything else of Minho’s escape plan. During that time, life became fun again, just like it had before the Crank pits. About once a week, Teresa worked her magic on the security camera loops and they had a get-together in one of their rooms or, more frequently, in the old maintenance room, deep below everything else.

 

It was always the same group: Alby, Minho, Dan, Newt, Thomas, Teresa, Phil, and sometimes little Chuck. He’d become everyone’s favourite; he was goofy, innocent, gullible, and took all their jokes in his stride. He’d become the little brother Phil had never had, the little brother some of them had lost.

 

Sometimes they smuggled in food and ate as they talked and laughed. After a few months of these nights, they’d mostly forgotten that fear they’d all had - the fear of someone walking in and finding them, and sending them back to the Crank pits, possibly without any fences to protect them.

 

They forgot to be scared, instead feeling safe and happy. On the nights when they all got together, Phil forgot about WICKED, about his entire life being planned out and controlled. For just a while every night, he was truly free. It was the best time of their lives, and Phil wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

 

Sometime in late July, Phil, Thomas and Teresa had been officially told about the telepathy, and ‘taught’ how to use it. Thomas had mentioned having a suspicion that WICKED knew they’d been communicating before that, which Phil agreed with. If WICKED did know, though, they hadn’t said anything. He supposed it worked to WICKED’s advantage if the three of them already knew how to speak telepathically - less time would have to be spent teaching them, and more time could be spent working on projects which would, Phil assumed, benefit from the instant communication. Phil was still working on the basic programming for the sky illusion, but he knew that Thomas and Teresa would soon join him to help him fine-tune it.

 

One day, after coming back from lunch early (as he always did, since he had nothing to occupy his time), he came across a research tablet on someone’s desk that hadn’t been turned off. The owner of the tablet seemed to still be on lunch break, as was everyone else - they all went at the same time, but the adults most likely made conversation for the whole hour, whereas Phil had no one to talk to. He was the only one in the command room, so he walked over to the research tablet, intending to turn it off so the battery wouldn’t be wasted. His hand went to the power button, but before he could push it, something caught his eye - an illustration of the Maze. Those were the walls Phil designed, and, although he knew it was wrong to look at someone else’s possessions when they weren’t there, he found himself looking closer, curious as to what he would find.

 

On the screen were various different boxes, each with some writing or a diagram on them. One of them showed the Maze, as Phil had already seen. Another showed a couple of diagrams of a person’s brain, titled ‘The Killzone’, with some information on the side. A few boxes contained writing, but the biggest one caught Phil’s eye. At the top of the box were the words ‘The Maze Trials’. As Phil scanned the text, he quickly realised that he was looking at the plans for the Maze Trials. Everything WICKED had set out was on this screen.

 

Under the subheading ‘Group A’ were rows of photographs of children, their names underneath, accompanied by the letter ‘A’ and a number. Phil found Newt’s picture; underneath it was the text ‘Newt, Subject A5’. Phil could only guess what that meant. Studying the rows of faces, Phil was able to find Dan, Alby, Minho, and Chuck.

 

In the same box, above the photos of Group A, was a paragraph titled ‘Preliminary Variables’. As Phil scanned the paragraph, he noticed two things. First, a lot of scientific writing, some of which he couldn’t understand. Second, from what he could understand, he realised that the Maze Trials were going to be a lot harsher than he’d originally thought. Words such as ‘forced pain’, ‘attack’ and ‘elimination of comforts’ stood out. Phil read the paragraph a second time, thinking he must have misunderstood. However, it seemed Phil had been correct - WICKED were going to hurt these people, these children, in order to get what they wanted.

 

Phil read through the rest of the writing on the screen, shocked at what he’d found. He’d known the Maze Trials would be a little harsh, but he’d thought that all it would be was something akin to putting a different person in there every day, hence the different wall combinations, and making them find their way out. He hadn’t dreamed he was helping create something that would hurt people so badly. Phil supposed, in hindsight, that his innocent naivety had been foolish, but what he’d thought had seemed reasonable at the time.

 

Perhaps he was misinterpreting these plans, though? He didn’t see how it was possible - they were there in front of him, laid out clear as day. Anything was a better alternative than attacking children though, surely. He considered asking someone about it, but who? No one was in the lab but him. He went through a mental list of all the adults he knew, trying to think of someone he could ask about it. After a moment, a thought occurred to him. Maybe he could ask his father? Admittedly, Phil’s father could be mean at times, and Phil hadn’t seen him in quite a few weeks, but he was his  _ father _ . When it came down to it, surely he’d give him an explanation?

 

Making his decision, he put the research tablet back down on the desk, and turned around, walking back out of the command room and into the lift, commencing the journey upwards. Maybe going to find his father wasn’t the best decision Phil could have made, but at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be told WICKED wouldn’t dream of treating children so badly.

 

Phil made his way through the WICKED complex, navigating through hallways and staircases until he came to a door labelled ‘Dr Lester, Vice-Chancellor’. Would his father even be in his office? Phil hoped so. He’d only ever been in his father’s office three times, and all of them had been under negative circumstances - things such as being reprimanded for disobeying WICKED’s orders. This time, though, Phil was here on his own terms. He was here to find answers.

 

Raising his fist, he hesitated before knocking on the door three times.

 

“Come in,” his father’s voice called from inside.

 

Taking a deep breath, Phil opened the door, entering his father’s office.

 

The room, like all the others, was made up of white walls, the monochromacy broken up only by high-tech computers and holograms. Nothing stood out about the room that made it look as though it truly belonged to Phil’s father - no photos, no personal mementos. All the office was were blank walls, advanced technology, and experiments.

 

Phil’s father sat at his desk, typing something on a keyboard identical to all the others in WICKED’s labs. When Phil entered, he looked up, his brow furrowing in confusion at the sight of his son.

 

“Philip, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in the command room?” His father asked, eyes on the computer in front of him once more.

 

“Right now, it’s my lunch break. And I wanted to ask you something,” Phil explained, hoping his father wouldn’t make him leave before giving him an explanation.

 

His father sighed. “Fine, but make it quick. I’m busy.” He hadn’t stopped typing since Phil had walked in.

 

Phil took a moment to gather his courage. “I saw the plans for the Maze Trials. It says WICKED’s going to attack the kids. Is it true?”

 

His father stopped typing, looking him in the eyes. “That doesn’t concern you, Philip. Go back to the command room.”

 

“But I want to know!” Phil protested. “Don’t I have the right to know about something I’m working on?”

 

“Philip, I mean it. You don’t automatically need to know everything that happens at WICKED.”

 

“What reason do you have for keeping this from me, though? If I’m creating something that will hurt people, I want to know! That’s not something I want to do!”

 

His father sighed. “Yes, the plans for the Maze Trials do involve causing minor harm to the subjects. It’s all in the name of science, though. What we have planned will produce killzone patterns vital to our experiment.”

 

“But it won’t be bad, will it? You’ll let them out?”

 

“Look, Philip, just go back and keep working on the sky. You don’t need to know about this aspect of the Trials yet.”

 

“I’m not going to help create something that will hurt people! There’s got to be some other way to do it,” he pressed.

 

Phil’s father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Philip, I know you think you’re doing the right thing, or something like that, but you can’t just refuse to do what we tell you. I don’t think I need to remind you what happens if you disobey WICKED.” He was referring, of course, to the punishments WICKED had given him the last time he went against them repeatedly. Memories of fear and burning agony flashed through his mind, and he shook his head quickly, a lump forming in his throat. “Good. You’re still a child, Philip. You don’t understand our mission yet.” His voice was condescending. “But you will, in time. In a few years, you’ll be just like the rest of us. You’ll be dedicated to our goal and nothing else. Try to think of the bigger picture. What we’re doing could save humanity. Why does it matter if we hurt some people to save the rest? Now, go back to the command room, alright?”

 

Phil opened his mouth to protest, but even as he did so, he knew it would be no use. His father had already sat back down, attention on his work rather than Phil once more. Reluctantly, he exited the room, going back the command room once again. His father was right - maybe it was worth harming a few to spare the lives of thousands, and cure the Flare. All the same, though, the thought of deliberately hurting people, children, his  _ friends _ … it wasn’t something Phil wanted to do, not by a long shot.

 

Not for the first time in his life, Phil wished that he wasn’t here, that he did have to do any of this. He wished, more than anything, that the sun flares had never happened. That way, the Flare, which had been an aftereffect of the sun flares, would never have existed. Billions of people would still be alive, and everyone would be living a normal life. Phil and his friends would never have had to endure everything they’d been through - the tests, the Crank pits, WICKED’s punishments. Phil would know his mother. Maybe he’d be loved by someone. Life would be okay.

 

But that was nothing more than a fantasy. No matter how much he wished things were different, he would always be stuck in a cold, harsh reality, one that contained Cranks, sun flares, and a harsh organisation controlling them. There was no escaping real life.

 


	20. 226.11.12, 11:21AM

Phil and Teresa sat side by side in the command room; Thomas was down in the Maze. Around two weeks ago, Thomas and Teresa had finally begun working with him, helping him fine-tune the sky illusion. The physical walls of the Maze were at least half finished, and it looked phenomenal. Phil could only imagine how it would look once it was finished, and paired with the sky, it would surely be a staggering sight. The thought of what the Maze would look like when complete would, Phil thought, almost make this whole thing worthwhile. Almost.

 

He’d told Thomas and Teresa about the plans the day he’d found them. Neither of them had been completely comfortable with what the Maze Trials had in store for the subjects, but Teresa had made the same point Phil’s father had made - it was worth hurting a few to save many. She’d agreed that it seemed wrong, though, as had Thomas.

 

Currently, while Thomas stood in the centre of the Maze, watching to see if the program worked, Teresa and Phil were projecting a single dot from a thousand different sources around the vast cavern. Their aim was for the dots to all appear in the same place; the technicians couldn’t move forward with the projecting software.

 

“Okay, I think it’ll work now,” Phil stated, finishing the final adjustment to the code.

 

“Sounds good. Let’s try it out,” Teresa replied.

 

She spoke telepathically, so Thomas could hear her from down in the Maze.  _ Okay, let me know when you see a red dot flash in the exact centre of the ceiling. _

 

_ Roger that,  _ Thomas replied.

 

_ Would you  _ please _ stop saying “roger that”? _ Phil laughed, feeling Thomas laugh back.

 

“Right, okay,” he said to Teresa out loud. “Let’s see if this is finally going to work.”

 

Teresa activated the code, but Thomas said nothing. The two of them waited for several seconds, but Thomas remained silent, giving no indication of whether or not he’d seen the red dot.

 

“Do you think it’s working?” Phil asked.

 

“I don’t know,” Teresa answered. “Only one way to find out.”

 

_ Have you seriously not seen it yet? _ Teresa asked Thomas, sending a jolt of annoyance along with her words

 

_ Oh! Sorry. _ Thomas replied. It seemed that Thomas was constantly lost in thought lately.  _ Yeah, yeah, there’s a bright red dot, practically right above me. _

 

_ Practically? _ Phil pushed Thomas to elaborate.  _ Or is it exactly in the right spot? _

 

_ Um, well. It might be about ten feet off, actually. And, um, maybe a dozen or so more are blurry and scattered. Sorry. _

 

It had to be one. Just one red dot, centred. They had to get it right. The lack of success in the the project was beginning to frustrate Phil; even though he wasn’t the only one responsible for the project, he felt as if, by not being able to solve the problem quickly, he was letting the others down.

 

_ Tom, we have to get this right before we can move on to another project, and I’m sick of this one, _ Teresa sighed.

 

_ Tell me about it, _ Thomas replied sarcastically.  _ My neck is killing me from looking up at all these mistakes. _

 

Teresa ignored him, as she usually did whenever he made a statement like that.

 

_ We’ll try again, _ Phil told Thomas.

 

Phil and Teresa proceeded to adjust the sky program - a little movement here, a few extra lines of code there. It took half an hour to make the changes, and when they had finished, they tried it again.

 

_ Six this time, _ Thomas confirmed.  _ The biggest one’s maybe four or five feet from the centre. _

 

Phil smiled. They were approaching their goal, slowly but surely.  _ Good. _

 

_ We’re getting there, _ Teresa agreed.

 

_ What do you say we wrap this up tomorrow? _ Thomas asked.  _ We’ve been at this for weeks, and we all need a break. Besides, I wanna sneak off and get a nap in before our rendezvous tonight with the fellas. _

 

_ Deal. _ A single word, not spoken aloud, but Teresa still sounded exhausted.

 

_ Works for me, _ Phil agreed, relieved.

 

\---------------

 

They gathered in the maintenance room at around one in the morning. Minho had managed to smuggle some kind of awful liquid that made Phil’s throat burn and his eyes water. Alby had a giant bag of crisps; no one knew where he’d gotten them from, and no one asked. Chuck had much more than his fair share, but no one seemed to mind.

 

“I’ve got a new guy coming tonight,” Minho mentioned offhandedly, not ten minutes after everyone had arrived.

 

Phil looked at his friend, thrown by the unexpected statement. Thomas had frozen with a crisp halfway to his mouth; Teresa leaned forwards; Newt raised his eyebrows; Dan choked on the food in his mouth.

 

“Come again?” Alby asked.

 

Chuck didn’t pause for a second, continuing to eat as if a cure for the Flare might depend on it.

 

Minho, seeing how unexpected his pronouncement had been, stood up and waved an arm to say it was no big deal. “Nothing to worry about, folks. He’s a good enough guy.” He stopped talking, although his eyes showed he had a lot more to say.

 

“Good enough?” Teresa repeated. “That’s the criteria now for trusting our secret to someone new?”

 

The confidence and swagger which had defined Minho mere moments before suddenly vanished. “His name is Gally. And he’s, uh… You remember that plan I told you about? To escape?”

 

Phil’s heart sank. He had hoped that Minho’s notion had died a quick and lasting death months ago. He didn’t want his friend to risk getting hurt.

 

“Yeah, we remember,” Alby said. “We also remember the Crank pits, and the beds we have, and the food we get, and the walls that protect us from the insane asylum they call the world. Your point?”

 

“Gally’s going to help me,” Minho replied, looking sheepishly around the room. “He should be here any second.”

 

With perfect timing, someone knocked on the door as soon as he’d finished his sentence.


	21. 226.11.13, 1:34AM

As soon as Gally walked into the room, Phil noticed the look in his eyes. It was pathetic, somehow, as if something had broken inside him a long time ago. Phil immediately felt sorry for the boy - something bad must have happened to him, most likely at the hands of WICKED.

 

Nothing physical really stood out about the boy - black hair, tall and skinny, pale skin. He didn’t seem like a bad person, and Phil hoped he was trustworthy.

 

“Everyone, meet Gally,” Minho introduced. “Gally, meet everyone. Some of you know him, or at least have seen him around. I’m sure we’ll all get along peachy.”

 

“Good that,” agreed Newt.

 

Gally gave everyone a nice-enough nod, a sincere attempt at a smile. Phil returned it.

 

After a long, awkward silence, Alby asked exactly what Phil was wondering.

 

“So how’s Gally supposed to help with this idiotic plan to escape?”

 

“I’ll let him tell you,” Minho replied, thumping the new boy on the back.

 

Gally cleared his throat. “I work out on the grounds with a couple others. Mostly landscaping stuff - cutting down weeds, shovelling snow when the odd storm hits, trying to get bushes and flowers to grow. But I also do electrical work, maintenance, whatever. The three of us work under a guy named Chase.”

 

“And this will help you how?” Alby pressed, his tone making his feelings on the escape plan clear. “You going to push Minho to the woods in a wheelbarrow?”

 

Dan sniggered, then caught himself. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

 

Gally, rather than being offended, smiled right along. “If anyone gets to be pushed around in a wheelbarrow, it’s going to be me. Minho owes me.”

 

“Why?” Teresa asked.

 

Minho answered. “Because he’s the only way this thing works.”

 

Everyone looked to Gally for an explanation - except Chuck, who had fallen asleep on the floor, a dirty mop as his pillow.

 

“Chase isn’t the smartest guy at WICKED, let’s just say that.” Gally stared at the floor as he spoke. “I’ve been setting up little things for weeks now, things that’ll help someone get past the WICKED security measures. Truth is, WICKED relies on the threat of Cranks and the state of the world to prevent us from trying anything. It’s a lot harder to get into WICKED than it is to get out.”

 

“And what in the world do you plan to do once you’re out in the great Alaskan wilderness?” Teresa asked. “Rent a car, go find a nice apartment in Juneau?”

 

“Man, you guys really like your sarcasm,” Gally bit back. “I mean, do you think I’m stupid? Just because I don’t sneak out and have little parties with the cleaning supplies?”

 

“Gally, chill,” Minho warned.

 

Gally threw his arms up. “They’re the ones who need to grow up!”

 

“Hey!” Alby shouted. “Don’t come in here acting all high and mighty. We didn’t invite you.”

 

“That’s it. I’m out.” Gally walked towards the exit. Minho jumped in front of him, putting a hand on his chest, making him stop.

 

Minho looked around. “Come on, guys. Can you give me the benefit of the doubt here? Why do you think I’ve waited months to do this? Because I’m patient, and  _ not _ stupid. Gally’s figured out a way to communicate with a cousin in Canada - he’s close to the border. Gally used Chase’s transponder codes. We’ll have people waiting for us a few miles into the woods. They’re already on standby.”

 

Phil couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Despite all Minho’s talk, Phil had thought, until now, that he didn’t really mean to go through with escaping. But clearly Minho really meant to leave.

 

“Why?” Thomas asked, the one word attracting everyone’s attention. “Just tell us why, Minho. We know you’re not stupid, and I’m sure Gally isn’t, either. But why would you guys want to leave?”

 

“Because we’re prisoners,” Minho answered. “Because we’re held here against our will. That’s all the reason I need.”

 

“But you’ll never have it half as good as we do here!” Teresa almost shouted the words. “And how can you just turn your back on helping the world?”

 

For the first time since they met, Phil saw a trace of hostility in Minho’s eyes. “I guess we have different philosophies. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. You don’t take away my freedom without asking first.”

 

“Sorry we got off to a rough start,” Gally interjected. “I guess I’m just nervous being down here. But I promise you guys this can work.” He looked around at the group, then added, “Is anyone coming with us?”

 

Phil wanted to answer, to say yes, he’d go with them. He wanted to persuade them both to stay - who knew what kind of danger they’d find out in the world. He wanted to tell Minho he understood what he’d said about freedom. He wanted to tell them to be safe out there, if there was nothing he could do to stop them. But he said nothing.

 

“When?” Newt asked, breaking the silence in the room.

 

Minho and Gally answered at the same time.

 

“Tomorrow night.”


	22. 226.11.14, 6:41AM

They came for Phil just before his alarm went off.

 

Randall, Dr Leavitt, and Ramirez shook Phil awake, and despite his tired state, Phil knew something bad had happened, or was going to happen. Moments later, he was on his feet.

 

“What’s going on?” Phil asked, rubbing his eyes.

 

“I believe you know perfectly well what’s going on,” Randall replied, his words sharp and loud in the quiet of the morning. “And that’s why you’re coming with us, right now. We need your help.”

 

“Come on, Philip. Everything will be okay. Just do as you’re told.”

 

“Quickly, now,” Ramirez added. It was the first time Phil had ever heard the chief of security speak.

 

The three men escorted Phil through the building, often grabbing his arm at a turn in the hallway or when they were getting off the lift, even though he didn’t need it. They weren’t rough with him, but they were clearly in a hurry.

 

As Phil tried to make sense of what was happening, a thought occurred to him - Minho and Gally. What if they had been caught? Were they okay? Had the others gone with them, and been caught too? A sinking feeling formed in Phil’s chest; he hoped his friends were okay.

 

They stopped when they reached a heavily fortified door. Ramirez pressed his fingerprint to a glass panel and said his name. The door opened, and Randall gave Phil a nudge through.

 

Phil didn’t know what was going on, and he wanted answers. He decided to keep quiet for now, though - asking questions would only bring more trouble. Besides, Randall was being nicer than he had been on the night of the Crank pits, and Phil didn’t want to push him to that point again.

 

He looked around the room he had been brought into. It seemed to be some sort of control centre for security. There was a large wall of monitors showing everything from the medical rooms to dorms to progress on the Maze construction. Oddly, the video feeds for the Maze moved around skittishly, as though the cameras had been strapped to the backs of cats. Nestled in the middle of the room, facing the monitors, was a deck of equipment fitted out with more display screens and several chairs perched behind it. Two guards sat there, their gazes fixed on a monitor on the right side of the wall.

 

Phil looked closer at the image on the monitor, and his heart dropped into his feet. It showed Minho in a small room, strapped to a chair against a wall on the right side of the screen, the ropes digging into his skin. His face was bloody and bruised. He stared straight at the camera, unwavering, and the look of defiance and hatred on his face made Phil a little proud. There was something else in his eyes, though - pure fear. Something had clearly happened to Minho. Phil was full of sorrow - he hadn’t wanted Minho to run, and had hoped he wouldn’t try, for this exact reason.

 

“What did you do to him?” Phil asked, anger forming in his chest.

 

“I hate to say this, Philip,” Randall sighed, “but it looks like your friend didn’t learn from his last attempt to go outside I guess we were too easy on him, on everyone. Now we have no choice but to step things up. Don’t you agree?”

 

“No,” Phil answered quietly. Then he repeated himself, louder this time, looking into Randall’s eyes. “No, I don’t agree. What are you doing to him? Why can’t you let him go?”

 

“All we’re doing is teaching him a lesson,” Dr Leavitt answered, his tone making hurting a young boy sound perfectly reasonable. “People like Minho and Gally, people who think they’re above the effort to help us here - they have to be dealt with. Hopefully you can learn something by watching. Sit down.”

 

Ramirez put a hand on Phil’s shoulder and gently helped him sit down between the two guards.

 

“You’re excused now.” Randall dismissed the guards, who stood up and left the room.

 

Ramirez took the chair on Phil’s left, Dr Leavitt the one on his right. Randall stepped into the space between the controls and the monitors, then clasped his hands together behind his back, as if he were about to give a lecture.

 

“Philip,” he began. “Let’s be honest here. You know we’ve been watching you and your friends gather at night, correct? You might be young, but surely you’re too smart to think you were getting around us somehow?”

 

Just like that, the world of freedom and peace Phil escaped to on the nights he met his friends was shattered. He really had thought - or at least, hoped - that they were getting around WICKED somehow. Phil realised now that it had been nothing more than wishful thinking that their safe haven was unknown to WICKED. He hadn’t considered the possibility that they were being watched before, because he hadn’t wanted to consider it.

 

Randall placed his hands on the outer edge of the control deck and leaned towards Phil. “Listen, we’re not here to beat you up over Minho’s mistake. If anything, we were able to see that most of you tried to talk him out of it. But there are some valuable lessons to be learned from all of this, and we’re going to take advantage of the situation.”

 

The man seemed to enjoy beating around the bush, and Phil wished he would get to the point so Minho could be let go.

 

“You are going to sit with us and watch how we’re going to teach Minho his lesson. We need witnesses, to be frank. We need the word to get around. We can’t let something like this even happen again. Our subjects need to know that actions have consequences.”

 

“What are you going to do to him?” Phil asked, voice raised, scared for his friend.

 

Randall continued as if he hadn’t heard Phil. “We’ve already shown Thomas and Teresa, and after we’ve shown you, we’re going to show Aris and Rachel from Group B. We wanted you all to be alone on this, though, all reactions your own and not influenced by your friends.”

 

“This is also a big step in another way,” Dr Leavitt added. “The Maze Trials will only be a year or two from now, based on our current pace, and this?” He gestured around the room. “This is something you’re going to see a lot of once we put the first batch of subjects into the mazes. So look at this little exercise as practise. Sound good?”

 

“No, it doesn’t sound good. What’s going to happen to Minho?” Phil asked, annoyed that they refused to answer him.

 

“You’ll see in due course,” Randall replied, pointing to a different screen from the one showing Minho. “These are pods for a biomechanical creature that the military were able to help us design. At the moment, we’re calling them Grievers. They’re still in the early stages of development, but huge progress was made with this last round. I think we’re just two or more modifications away from having our perfect Maze monster.”

 

Phil was taken aback by Randall’s words. “Maze monster? What do these things do to people? No one ever said anything about monsters in the Maze!”

 

“You’ll learn all about the Grievers soon enough, Philip,” Ramirez spoke up. “To be honest, we had no intention of telling any of you about them for a while yet, but this opportunity arose and, well… I will say, as someone who’s been on the committee leading the development of these living weapons, that they’re an achievement by any standard.”

 

“In short,” Randall added, “if we’re going to understand how the brains of the Immunes function despite being afflicted with the Flare, we have to be able to stimulate them in every kind of feeling and brain activity known to humans. Once we start the Maze Trials, these creatures will help with that in a big way. You should see the Psych reports. Very interesting.”

 

Phil felt as though a dark shadow had passed over the room. Everything they were saying was foreboding, dark, slightly twisted, but their tones remained so offhand that they might as well be discussing the weather.

 

“Let’s get on with it.” Randall clapped his hands together once, then reached over and pressed something. “Go ahead, Alice. Open the pod.”

 

Phil watched as the seam along the side of the oval pod split open, jets of steam hissing from the opening. Soon, the pod was completely obscured by the steam, swirling mists filling the room on the screen. Quickly, he looked back at the screen showing Minho, and his blood went cold. Minho had broken his gaze at the camera, instead anxiously looking to his right, where tendrils of fog slid along the floor. The awful reality Phil had been trying to deny hit him in the chest.

 

Minho was in the same room as that opening pod.


	23. 226.11.14, 7:36AM

“What are you doing?” Phil asked, standing up. “Whatever’s in there, just stop! I understand! No one will try to escape anymore, just please stop!”

 

Ramirez, from behind Phil, placed one hand on each of Phil’s shoulders, forcefully pushing him back into his seat. Phil hadn’t seen the man move from his seat, but it had obviously happened.

 

Randall turned away from the mist-filled screen. “If we don’t act on our threats, then how will we ever have control in this experiment? If we let people escape - or try to - without consequences, what does that tell the other subjects? Minho made his choice. Now things have to play out the way they’re supposed to.”

 

“Hurting a kid is not ‘the way things are supposed to be’!” Phil pleaded. Minho - tough, reckless, always-joking Minho - had such a look of terror on his face that Phil could barely look anymore.

 

Turning his attention back to the screen with the pod, he saw that the fog had dissipated enough to reveal the container, its two halves resting on the floor. Phil watched, horrified, as something began to climb out.

 

Whatever Phil had been expecting, he could never have dreamed up what he saw next. It was impossible tell its shape; the creature was wet and glistening, with patches of hair covering part of its surface. There was metal, too - flashes of steel appendages, and sharp discs protruding from the quivering mass. Phil watched as the hideous creature pushed itself over the side of the container and crash down the the floor, revealing a slug-like body about the size of a small cow.

 

Phil shuddered, watching the abomination manoeuvre. He looked back at Minho, saw his friend thrashing wildly against his restraints, trying desperately to escape, screaming with no sound. The fog had washed over him, lingering in the background, rising towards the ceiling.

 

Minho looked at the camera, tears in his eyes, and screamed out a single word. Phil couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he read the frantic word on the boy’s lips.

 

_ Please. _

 

Phil completely lost all self-restraint.

 

“Stop it!” He yelled. He stood up, moving out of the adults’ reach, so they couldn’t make him sit back down again. “Just stop it! Leave him alone!”

 

Randall glanced over his shoulder - he’d been watching Minho intently - and gave Phil a tired expression.

 

“We have no choice,” the man said simply.

 

Phil was distraught. How could they do this? He wanted to help Minho, to stop the Griever before it injured him, or worse, but he had no means of doing so. In his frenzied state, Phil called out for help in the only way he could think of.

 

_ Thomas! Teresa! _ He shouted in his mind.  _ You have to help! They have Minho and they’re attacking him with a Griever! They said you’ve seen it too! Please tell me it’s not real! Say it’s a recording, that he only had to go through this once, that it’s repeated! They’re going to hurt him, please help! _

 

The words felt strange, this time, hollow, as if some sort of invisible barrier was bouncing everything he said back at him.

 

Of course, he thought. Of course WICKED can turn it off.  _ They can do whatever the hell they want. _

 

Phil was alone. His friend was being attacked by some horrific monster, he couldn’t call anyone for help, and was powerless to do anything besides watch whatever the Griever was going to do to Minho. He was completely and utterly helpless.

 

In that moment, Phil realised that, no matter what he or any of his friends believed, they had no freedom. No, what they had was the illusion of freedom, fragile, yet so well-constructed that at times Phil believed he was allowed his own free will. It was a beautiful lie. A lie which had shattered, allowing Phil to see WICKED’s true colours as the walls of hope he and his friends had built came crashing down around him, leaving him destroyed.

 

Minho continued to struggle and scream, face streaked with tears or sweat, Phil couldn’t tell. On the left side of the screen, something flashed into view - a blob with spikes dragging it across the ground. Right before in ran into Minho, it stopped. The metal spikes receded into its skin and the creature flattened out. Phil was sure that Minho was on the verge of serious damage - possibly even death.

 

“Please, listen to me!” Phil begged. “You have to stop this. I’ll do anything!” He paused. “I’ll even take his place if you just let him go!”

 

Part of the creature’s body was rising now, and several lengths of metal extended where the spikes had been. They were solid, covered in deadly objects - blades and saws and claws that snapped open and closed. Phil watched, almost in tears, as the weapons began, very slowly, to inch towards Minho’s body.

 

“Leave him alone!” Phil shouted. None of the adults paid any attention to him. “Please! You said you needed all the subjects, doesn’t that include Minho?  _ Stop! _ ”

 

The monstrosity had risen on its hindquarters, and now stood several feet higher than Minho’s head. The metal arms that had extended from its skin wrapped around Minho, encircling, trapping him against the wall he had his back to. As the Griever lifted its saw appendage, the blade spun to life, the arm inching closer and closer to Minho’s forehead. Minho had already pressed his head back against the wall, and Phil watched as his face contorted in pure fear.

 

“Don’t hurt him! He’s just a kid! Please just stop this!” Phil yelled. The blade was now just centimetres away from Minho.

 

Randall finally turned around, looking at Phil. “Philip, we can’t stop this. I’ve already told you, Minho must deal with the consequences of his actions.”

 

Randall turned back around, and Phil looked at the screen. A terrible feeling formed in his chest at what he saw, at what had happened in the time it took Randall to address him. The creature had reached Minho’s forehead, and the boy was screaming in pain as the blade spun, slowly cutting into his skin.

 

“ _ No! _ ” Phil screamed at the top of his lungs, a sound of pure desperation, terror, distress. He was certain that Minho was about to die a slow and painful death. To Phil’s immense relief, Randall, perhaps realising that he’d gone too far, hastily pressed the call button again.

 

“Stop,” Randall commanded urgently. “Pull it back.”

 

A moment later, the creature froze. Minho clenched his jaw, pain written over his features as the blade pulled back, stopping when it was no longer in Minho’s skin. Phil let out a deep, shuddering breath, but his relief died when he saw the cut on Minho’s forehead. It wasn’t too deep, which Phil was thankful for, but it wasn’t exactly shallow either. He could only imagine the terror and pain Minho must have been through.

 

“How could you do that?” Phil asked through gritted teeth, tears in his eyes.

 

“We let it go a bit too far this time,” Randall said quietly. “No matter, though. We will have gained excellent killzone patterns from this.”

 

“ _ That’s _ your excuse? That’s your excuse for doing this?” Phil could barely believe what he was hearing. “You can’t excuse things like this by talking about killzone patterns! That’s sick!”

 

“Look at him,” Randall instructed. “Look at the screen.”

 

Phil focused his gaze on Minho’s face, on the expression of pure panic.

 

“You see that?” Randall asked, also watching Minho. The creature was draped over the boy, almost like a blanket. “Did I not tell you that we’re almost there, we’ve almost perfected the greatest soldier?”

 

The calm awe that Randall was displaying after a such a violent, awful event was, to Phil, almost more twisted than anything he’d seen so far. A child had almost died at the hands of a monstrous creation, and Randall was talking about how amazing the monster was. Phil understood more than ever why Minho had wanted to run and never look back.

 

“I think this goes without saying,” Randall continued, his voice still imbued with a sense of awe. “I need you to never forget what you’ve seen here today. I need you to understand the power and the danger of these creatures. The pattern of your empathy could end up being one of the biggest pieces of our puzzle.”

 

At that moment, Phil could barely focus on what the man was saying. He couldn’t care less about WICKED’s ‘puzzle’ - all he could see was his friend strapped to a chair, breathing heavily. The Griever was still inches from him, metal arms still around him. The danger had not passed yet.

 

Randall pressed the call button one more time. “Okay. Call it back.”

 

Seconds later, the metal arms of the Griever withdrew, folding away from Minho and retracting into its body. The Griever seemed to melt into a flat slab of flesh on the floor, then wrapped itself into a rounded ball, traction spikes extending; finally it pulled itself end over end until it had rolled out of sight on the screen. Phil turned his attention to the other screen and the creature appeared, spinning until it reached the pod, retracted its spikes, then began to climb back inside. The pod hatch was closing even before the creature had disappeared into its home. A few seconds and a hiss of steam later, the pod closed and all went still.

 

Phil looked back at Minho, at the boy who was usually so rebellious, so sure of himself. Not this time, though. The boy sobbed, head hung low, looking injured, wretched, broken. Blood had run from the vertical cut on his forehead, down between his eyebrows, into his left eye.

 

“Let’s get you back to your room.” Randall broke the silence. “You need to start your work for today, and I still have two more people to witness what you just saw. If I were you, I’d write down anything of importance you learned today.”

 

In his shaken state, Phil struggled to verbalise the question in his mind. “I… what…”

 

“I hope you realise that we did not mean to physically harm Minho, only to scare him. I assure you that we will not let it happen again with the next two.”

 

“Next two…” Phil shook his head slowly, looking Randall straight in the eye, expression pleading. “No. You can’t put him through that again. You said this is the third time. Isn’t that enough for? At least say you’ve taken a recording to show them.”

 

“I’m sorry, Philip, but we have no choice. It’s more effective if the emotions Minho experiences are repeated for each subject to witness.” He sighed. “On so many levels.”


	24. 228.4.3, 2:19PM

Phil walked along the corridors of the Maze, lost deep in thoughts of Minho as he made his way to his destination. He hadn’t seen his friend in over a year, and although he’d physically survived the attack, Alby said that mentally, emotionally… he was a different person. He wasn’t as talkative or reckless, and he certainly never mentioned the word escape again. The passing of time could certainly heal a lot of wounds, but the way Alby described Minho, he would need about twenty more years.

 

It was Dan who had told Phil about Minho’s scar first. The cut on his forehead, while causing no serious damage, had left a jagged mark behind, serving as a permanent reminder to Minho of just what would happen to him if he dared to disobey.

 

The rest of their ‘maintenance-room clan’ still met once a week. Everyone but Minho. He hadn’t shown up once since the Griever attack, and Newt said their friend wouldn’t even consider it. He was a shell of the person they’d all once known, a wreckage that WICKED had caused. Phil’s heart ached at the thought. Minho had been a brilliant person, and to hear about how hollow he had become was horrible. Everything about Minho’s situation was completely unfair - he didn’t deserve any of what he’d been through. Who could blame him for reacting the way he did after the horror show WICKED called a ‘lesson’?

 

Bringing his attention back to his surroundings, Phil took in the scene around him. He, Thomas and Teresa had made a lot of progress with the Maze over the last few months, and while they couldn’t take credit for the construction of the walls themselves - majestic, towering walls of cracked grey stone, with ivy that crawled like veins across their surfaces - Phil could at least take the credit for the designs of the walls, although the mechanisms that made them move were all the work of the engineers. Phil had no idea how they did it, since they were busy and not the friendliest people in the world, but he found it amazing all the same.

 

So many of the finer details around him, though - the little things that really made the place come alive and feel real - were due to the tireless efforts of him, Thomas and Teresa.

 

Above him, the sun peeked out from behind a stone wall, the sky clear and blue. The sky had taken countless days of painstaking effort to perfect, but seeing that end result, seeing that beautiful sky that looked so real - made him forget just how hard it had been.

 

The Maze was beautiful. It was a striking scene, one that Phil couldn’t believe he’d hand in creating. Everything about it was stunning, enthralling. But he’d rather throw himself to the Grievers than send a single person in there.

 

The Maze was inching towards completion. When it was finished, subjects would be trapped in there, forced to find their way out. Phil didn’t know much about the Maze Trials - WICKED had been very careful about keeping him in the dark - but he knew the subjects were going to be put in there, trapped with Grievers. After seeing what had happened to Minho, that wasn’t a fate Phil wished on anyone, least of all innocent children.

 

Since the Griever attack, Phil’s resentment towards WICKED had grown tenfold. Seeing them torture Minho, a torture the boy had had to endure five times, showed Phil just what WICKED were really like. Now he knew the twisted lengths they were willing to go to in order to get what they wanted, the dislike Phil had felt for them before turned into bitter anger. While he knew they needed certain killzone patterns, was it really necessary to keep children like lab rats, strip them of their freedom, torture them to the point where they became nothing but an empty shell of who they’d used to be?

 

_ You there yet? _ Thomas asked him from the control centre, where he sat with Teresa.

 

_ Give me a second, _ Phil responded. _ I’m just admiring the view. _

 

The sound of tiny, clattering metal feet approached from behind Phil, who knew what it was without turning around. It was one of the beetle blade cameras that were now spread all over the Maze, ready to record everything that happened during the trials. He was going to ignore it, until it jumped onto the back of his leg and crawled up his body.

 

Phil yelped, jumping slightly, twisting, reaching for his back, trying to swat the creature off. He spun in a circle as the beetle blade scuttled all over his clothes, pecking his skin with its sharp legs. It reached his neck and latched on, digging in until it hurt.

 

_ You were saying again? _ Teresa asked, her voice laced with evil glee.  _ That’s a really nice dance you put on down there. Don’t worry, I have it recorded, ready to show Dan and the others next time we get together. _

 

“Not funny!” Phil yelled out loud. The beetle blade was knocking its head into his ear,right in a spot that hurt. He finally managed to get a grip on the metal body, flinging the creature off. It landed on its feet and scampered away, disappearing into the ivy of the wall to his right.

 

_ You win. I’m coming. _ Phil tried not to smile.

 

_ Next time, we’ll send a Griever, _ Teresa replied.  _ Or worse - Randall. _

 

The three of them laughed, one of those things Phil knew and felt without understanding how.

 

_Okay, I’m here,_ Phil announced. He had reached the end of the corridor, which had a drop-off of about twenty feet to a black-painted floor. This was one of the areas in the Maze where the optical illusion technology wasn’t yet complete. If a stranger were to somehow stumble across the Maze, they’d surely think they’d lost their mind. When Phil looked up, he saw a perfect sky. When he looked down, over the edge of the cliff, he saw a black floor that led to a black wall - the edge of the Maze cavern. But straight ahead, the sky and the wall didn’t exactly meet - the boundary between the two bounced here and there, blended and unblended, mixed and swirled. It made Phil feel slightly dizzy.

 

_ Can you see the Griever hatch? _ Thomas asked.

 

Phil looked into the middle of the kaleidoscope of illusion and reality, seeing a shaft towering up from the floor below, with an open circle at its top. This was the hole through which the Grievers would enter and exit the Maze.

 

_ I can see it, _ he replied.  _ It keeps swimming in and out of the illusion, though. It’s making me feel weird. _

 

_ Let us know when it disappears completely, _ Teresa instructed.

 

Phil watched as the image in front of him shimmered, went out of focus, bounced, then shimmered again. Soon, the shaft of the Griever hatch vanished from sight, and as long as he didn’t look down, the illusion of endless blue sky opened up before him. Now, instead of dizziness, he felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo, as though he were falling. He took a step backwards.

 

_ It worked! _ He confirmed.  _ It looks perfect! _

 

Teresa whooped, a sound Phil felt all the way to his bones. Thomas cheered. The three of them had been working on the Griever hatch illusion for a month, and now they were so close.

 

_ Good job, _ Phil congratulated.  _ Seriously. What would these people do without us? _ He joked.

 

_ They’d need another few years at least, _ Teresa smiled.

 

Phil stared at the vista before him, in disbelief at how realistic it seemed. It was as if the corridor of the Maze ended in a cliff at the end of the world, at the end of existence.

 

_ I wonder who’ll be the first one to see a Griever, _ Thomas said.  _ And will they crap their pants? Should we bet on it? _

 

Phil surprised even himself with his sombre answer.  _ And who’ll be the first to die? _

 

_ They won’t let it get that far, _ Thomas replied.  _ There’s no way. _

 

Phil said nothing.


	25. 229.6.12, 10:03AM

Phil studied the people who sat around the table. Every important person he knew or had heard about, and some more he didn’t know. Psychs, doctors, technicians. Randall, Ramirez, Leavitt. His father. Dr Paige sat on Thomas’ left, Phil to his right, and Teresa to Phil’s right. Chancellor Anderson was at the head of the table, Katie McVoy by his side. There were only two other teenagers in the room, and even though they’d never met, and had never even seen each other before, Phil knew exactly who they were. Aris - olive skin, brown hair, eyes sharp with awareness - and Rachel - dark skin, tightly curled hair, a kind expression on her face. They weren’t the aloof individuals Phil had imagined; instead, they seemed instantly likeable somehow. They seemed nice, and Phil thought that, in other circumstances, they would have been friends.

 

_ Are they ever going to let us hang out with them? _ Teresa asked.

 

Thomas shrugged mentally.  _ I was just thinking that maybe it’s a contest or something. Maybe they’re hoping the two groups will do better if they’re trying to do it first. What if there’s a prize? _ He joked.

 

_ A lifetime supply of WICKED t-shirts! _ Phil chimed in. He heard Thomas snigger under his breath.

 

_ Guys, I’ve been thinking, _ Phil started.

 

_ Go on, _ prompted Teresa.

 

_ So there’s you two, right? Then there’s Aris and Rachel. Two people working on each Maze. Where do I fit into all of that? Why are there three people on our Maze, but only two of them? _

 

_ Good point, actually, _ Thomas replied.  _ Maybe it’s another one of their Variables? It’s probably because you’re smart or something. _

 

Phil was about to answer, but Chancellor Anderson cleared his throat to get the meeting underway.

 

“I’d like to welcome our lead candidates to their very first meeting of the Chancellor’s Committee, an important step in their continued progress. Thomas, Teresa, Phil, Aris, Rachel - we’re really proud of you. The work you’ve done on the Maze projects has been phenomenal. Just phenomenal. We pegged the five of you a long time ago as standouts, and we weren’t wrong. Congratulations.” He beamed a smile that seemed too strong to be genuine; Phil imagined the man was probably under a lot of stress.

 

“Now,” Chancellor Anderson continued, “it’s been ten years since the first inkling of WICKED was conceived by John Michael, and we’ve come a long way in our research since we began gathering those who were immune to the Flare. The progress in those first years was slow, of course. Trying to understand the disease itself, testing our subjects to ensure that they were actually immune, learning about the virus and how it interacts with people’s bodies and brains. Slow, but steady. Not a year has passed when we didn’t have some kind of significant achievement, and I’d say that’s better than anyone could have hoped for.” The chancellor paused, looking at Thomas. “Thomas? You have the biggest look of doubt on your face I think I’ve ever seen.” He offered another huge smile.

 

Phil looked at his friend. “Oh… um…” Thomas shifted in his chair. “No, I just… it seems like such a long time you guys have been working on his. I don’t know. I guess it just hit me that it’s not going so well.”

 

Anderson nodded, lips pinched, as if he were saying it was a reasonable observation. “Dr Leavitt, do you want to address that?”

 

The man seemed eager to do so. “Read your history, son. I challenge you to find any kind of virus throughout the last few hundred years that was cured within  _ several _ decades, much less one. Anything from the common cold to Ebola to HIV to the early stages of certain types of cancer. It’s a long, long process. And those people didn’t have a half-destroyed world with mind-sick Cranks running around. The fact that we’ve had the patience and endurance to work at this with a long-term strategy is pretty much a miracle. But even if there’s only ten percent of the population left by the time we find a cure, at least we’ll have saved the human race from extinction.

 

“What about Munies?” Aris asked. “Could the human race continue if only they survive?”

 

Dr Leavitt scoffed, then seemed embarrassed that he’d done so. “How many of them are going to survive a world full of Cranks?”

 

_ I really don’t like him, _ Teresa remarked.

 

_ Yeah, me neither, _ Thomas replied.

 

_ I second that, _ agreed Phil.

 

“Dr Leavitt’s points are well made,” Anderson stated. “We’ve done our best to gather the smartest people, the most advanced resources, and the best subjects, then ensured our protection from the outside world. We’ve planned for a long haul since first began, and we don’t plan to stop until an answer to this sickness is in our hands and ready to present to the world. And it should be no surprise to the candidates who are here today that we’ve been testing and running trials as often as possible since day one. Am I right?” Beside Phil, Thomas nodded.

 

“The Maze Trials are very close to beginning,” the chancellor continued. In the split second before he started his next sentence, a multitude of emotions went through Phil’s head - sadness that so many people were about to be treated so cruelly, fear at the possibility of people being seriously injured or even dying - and yes, a sliver of pride, buried deep under the compassionate feelings, but there all the same. He’d contributed so much to the Maze. That didn’t change the fact that the harsh conditions described in the plans he’d seen years ago were about to become a reality, though.

 

“We’ve been preparing for this for a long time. But the progress we’ve made in the last few years towards our ultimate blueprint of the killzone…” Anderson struggled to find the words. “I think we’ve laid a solid foundation through the smaller tests and trials we’ve accomplished with our subjects so far. The chances are slim, but maybe we’ll have a blueprint after the Maze Trials. Who knows? Maybe we can avoid a Phase Two or Three. I’m feeling optimistic today.”

 

He paused, gaze unfocused, as if he were several years in the future, envisioning the perfect ending to the cause he’d devoted his life to. Phil hoped he was right - he didn’t want people to have to go through a Phase Two, whatever that would be. The Maze Trials alone seemed bad enough.

 

Next to Thomas, Dr Paige started clapping, slowly at first, then others joined in. Soon the entire room was clapping, the sound making even Phil feel a little excited.

 

Chancellor Anderson held up his hands and the clapping slowed to a stop. “Alright, alright. That applause, of course, is for all of us. And for all those subjects in Groups A and B. I really do feel like we’re on the right path. I really do.” He smiled, seemingly gathering himself, then let out a breath. “Okay, it’s time to get to work. We’re a month or two - four at most - from sending our first people into the mazes.”

 

Another one of his dramatic pauses - Phil supposed the man deserved a little moment in the spotlight after ten years of work - then he  _ really _ began the meeting.

 

“The trials are upon us, folks. Let’s dig in.”


	26. 229.6.12, 6:10PM

Later that day came one of the biggest changes Phil had experienced - from that day onwards, he, along with Thomas and Teresa, would be fully integrated with Group A, including meals, classes, and recreation time.

 

“Since you no longer need to work on the Maze Trials or in the labs,” they had been told, “we think now is a good time to integrate you with the other subjects.”

 

It wasn’t exactly the greatest gift in the world - all their friends in Group A, with the exception of Chuck, were scheduled to enter the Maze with the very first group, sometime in the next couple of months. Phil wished, for his friends’ sake, that he could do something to stop it, but he couldn’t.

 

Ramirez escorted Phil, Thomas and Teresa to their first dinner in the cafeteria. Phil marvelled at the sight before him; all his life, he’d eaten in this room, always alone. Now it was full of children his age. A loud hum of chatter filled the room, but when they entered, the place went silent, every eye trained on the newcomers.

 

“Listen up,” Ramirez barked, voice echoing in the quiet. “Many of you have heard of Thomas and Teresa, and Philip - they’ve been considered elite candidates for years. Philip is also the son of Vice-Chancellor Lester.”

 

_ He’s giving us a death sentence! _ Teresa yelled silently to Phil and Thomas. Phil mentally groaned back.

 

“-be nice to them, they’ve worked really hard,” Ramirez was saying. “The Maze Trials are starting soon, as you’re all aware, and there’s a lot to be done. These three will be considered official liaisons between you subjects and the WICKED personnel overseeing the trial preparation. We’ll be assigning the entrance schedule to the mazes very soon. In the meantime, take the time to get to know these three, prepare yourselves mentally and physically, and let yourselves get excited for the fun changes ahead. Now, back to your meals.”

 

He nodded stiffly, then turned around and walked out of the cafeteria, without saying a word to Thomas, Teresa or Phil.

 

_ That guy’s just a buttload of charm, _ Teresa remarked sarcastically.

 

Before either Thomas or Phil could respond, Alby, Dan and Newt came up to them, faces alight with big grins.

 

“Well, look who the bloody copper dragged in,” Newt greeted, pulling Thomas into a hug, pounding his back a few times before letting go. “Welcome to society.”

 

“Feels a bit weird, seeing you without sneaking around and all that,” Dan joked. “Who knew you guys existed in the daytime too?” Phil laughed as Dan hugged him.

 

“It’s good to see you guys,” Alby said. “Your heads big enough with all that crap they’re saying about you? You guys the new chancellors now?”

 

Thomas began to respond, but someone tackled him from the left, almost taking him down. It was Chuck.

 

“What’s up, you little runt?” Thomas asked, ruffling Chuck’s hair fondly.

 

“Pretty much running this place, is all,” Chuck answered, puffing his chest out. “When I’m not sneaking over to Group B to get me some lovin’ from the ladies, that is.”

 

At this, everyone started laughing. Phil looked around the cafeteria, scanning the faces, then came across someone he knew. It was Gally. As Phil looked at the boy who had unwittingly caused all the trouble with Minho, something different about his face to the last time he’d seen the boy. His nose was about twice as big as it used to be, and misshapen, like some kind of squashed vegetable had been glued there.

 

_ Guys _ . He spoke to Thomas and Teresa.  _ Look over there, to the right. Gally. _

 

The two of them looked. Thomas, who had gone over to a table and was talking to someone, turned back to the person, seeming to ask a question. With a feeling of joy, Phil realised that the person Thomas was talking to was none other than Minho. Phil walked up to them, glad to see Minho again.

 

“ _ That’s _ what happened.” Minho held up a fist. “His loose tongue gave us up, I’m pretty sure. Probably bragging in the showers or something. Even if it wasn’t his fault, it sure made me feel better.”

 

Phil expected Minho to smile, or laugh, or give some kind of indication that he was joking, but a dark look passed over his friend’s face. Phil could tell that Minho was doing a little better after the Griever attack, but there was still a defeated look behind his eyes. The scar on his forehead, of course, was still there, a pale, jagged reminder that the creature had almost cut into his brain. Phil was glad it hadn’t.

 

“Hey, Minho,” Phil greeted, smiling at his friend. “How you doing?”

 

Minho nodded. “Better.”

 

At that moment, the rest of the group came up behind Phil.

 

“Let’s get you some food,” suggested Dan. “It’s not the worst thing you’ll ever taste.”

 

“Then we’ve got some catching up to do,” Alby added. “People to ridicule, plans to make.”

 

And for a little while, things like sun flares and Cranks were all but forgotten once more.


	27. 229.11.12, 7:37AM

They were days away from insertion. Days. Phil could barely sleep due to anticipation. He, Thomas and Teresa connected via telepathy every night at bedtime, but often they merely lingered in silence, none of them having much to say. Nonetheless, the presence of the others, the feeling of them somehow being there even when they weren’t, was comforting.

 

An unexpected knock on Phil’s door jolted him out of his thoughts. Already dressed, he opened the door, surprised to see Dr Paige standing there, accompanied by Thomas and Teresa. Dr Paige look agitated.

 

“Philip, I’m sorry to spring this on you so suddenly, but I need you to come with us. Chancellor Anderson wants to meet with the elite subjects this morning. It’s urgent. You can have breakfast after the meeting. Come on, now.”

 

Gently, she took his arm, guiding him out into the hallway before shutting the door behind him.

 

As Dr Paige started leading them down the hallway, Phil reached out to Thomas and Teresa with his mind.

 

_ What’s going on? _

 

_ We don’t know, _ Teresa answered.  _ Looks like we’ll find out soon. _

 

Dr Paige led them into the same conference room, the same one in which the group had attended the Chancellor’s Committee meeting a few months ago. That time, the room had been filled with people. This time, only four people were in attendance besides Phil and the four other ‘elite’ candidates: Chancellor Anderson, Julio Ramirez, Phil’s father, and Dr Paige. The adults sat on one side of the table, with Phil, Thomas, Teresa, Aris and Rachel sitting across from them on the other. No one in the room looked particularly happy.

 

“Thanks for coming,” Anderson began. These meetings seemed to always start with statements like that, as if Phil and his friends had any choice in being there. “I’m afraid I have some sobering news. And I’m not going to beat around the bush - I’m going to just come out and say it.”

 

Though, he said this, he did the opposite - he fell silent, trading looks with the other adults.

 

“Then just say it,” Aris said, after a long silence.

 

Anderson nodded stiffly. “We think… we  _ believe _ that we might have an outbreak on our hands.” He sat back in his chair and let out a weary breath, looking again at Dr Paige.

 

“An outbreak,” Teresa repeated. “Of the Flare?”

 

“Paige, say something,” Anderson grumbled.

 

Dr Paige folded her hands on the table and looked at the teenagers. “Yes, the Flare. As you can imagine, none of the adults here are immune, so we’ve taken extreme caution to ensure our safety from the virus. A few months ago, however, we began to worry that we’d had a breach, even though none of our staff exhibited symptoms or tested positive.”

 

“Then what made you worry about it?” Rachel asked.

 

“You’re aware of the Crank pits?” Phil’s father spoke, more of a statement than a question. “That’s the riskiest part of our facilities, but a vital one. It’s a trap and a holding facility for Cranks that wander onto our grounds, and it provides biological material for our study regarding the virus.”

 

“So what happened?” Thomas asked.

 

“We keep a strict inventory,” Ramirez explained. Hearing the gruff man speak was always a surprise. “It’s almost like an old-fashioned bee trap down there - they wander in but can’t get back out. The holding facility is constantly monitored. We have cameras everywhere.” He paused and coughed deep in his throat. “There’s a strict no-contact rule without a containment suit - actually, a twenty-foot distance rule - unless you’re a Munie, of course. Like you folks.” The man sniffed, as though offended by his own words.

 

“But what happened?” Phil asked, wishing they’d hurry up and tell them what was wrong.

 

“One of the Cranks went missing,” Ramirez answered. “Three times a day we take an inventory, accounting for newcomers from the outside forests, less those who are removed for lab needs. There has never been a discrepancy, not once in all my years. Until a few months ago. One up and vanished.”

 

His words settled over the room for a moment, no one speaking. Even though he was immune, Phil shivered - it wasn’t the virus he was afraid of, but the Cranks themselves. He thought back to the night he and his friends had been taken to the Crank pits. Although it had been years since that night, the memory was still clear as day. The thought that even one of those bloodthirsty animals could be hiding somewhere in the WICKED complex unnerved him.

 

“We don’t want to alarm you or anyone else,” Chancellor Anderson stated, “but we’ve brought you in to let you know we’ve made some decisions. Some very hard decisions. For starters, we’ve decided to shorten the Maze Trials from five years to two. Although we all talk about this being a long, slow process, the possibility of a breakout has given us pause. We might have to be a little more… intense with the Variables.”

 

Phil remembered the plans he’d come across for the Maze Trials. The Variables had seemed rather intense then; how were WICKED going to make them worse?

 

Despite what Anderson had said at the start of the meeting about not beating around the bush, he seemed to be avoiding, dancing around something that needed to be said. No one said anything, but Teresa opened up her mind to Phil and Thomas, letting them know she shared the same ominous feelings.

 

“We’ve been working on several possibilities for a Phase Two, even a Phase Three if it comes to that,” Phil’s father added. “Once we get past the initial Maze insertions, we’ll see how things go.”

 

The chancellor sighed, then put his head in his hands before looking up again. Phil had never seen him look so frustrated.

 

“I feel like there’s too much to do sometimes.” Anderson slapped the table with an open hand. “Look, things can be worked out over the next few months as we study and analyse the results within the mazes. Suffice it to say we have Flat Trans technology, we have the potential for more human resources, and we’re even scouting locations for further trials. It can all happen, and it will happen, everything in its own time. Reducing the Maze Trials from five to two years is simply the right thing to do.” He smiled weakly. “I think half of my frustration with this change is that it took so much effort to build the damn things that it’s a shame to see them utilised for less than half the time that we intended.

 

_ He’s stalling,  _ Thomas said.  _ There’s something he has to say that he doesn’t want to say. _

 

“What aren’t you telling us?” Phil asked.

 

Anderson seemed surprised by the question at first, but then gave a knowing smile. “Sometimes I forget just how perceptive you kids are. Here’s the thing - I’m just nervous, okay? I shouldn’t show you that, much less admit it, but there’s the truth.” His eyes flicked around the room, coming to rest on the table in front of him before he looked at each of the children and let out a breath. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is going to be hard, but I know you’re all up to it.”

 

More things were said, more information exchanged throughout the course of the meeting, but throughout it, Phil kept thinking that the adults were hiding something from them. Something  had clearly happened, and for whatever reason, the adults had decided not to tell them. Phil just didn’t know what.


	28. 229.11.22, 8:47AM

_ Look at Minho, _ Teresa said.

 

It was the morning before the big day - the first insertion into the Maze. Forty boys from Group A were lined up along the walls of the hallway, ready for their final medical examinations. Dan, Newt, Alby, Minho, and Gally were all part of the group. Orderlies walked up and down the hall, preparing them to enter the medical rooms - taking temperatures, blood pressures, checking eyes, tongues.

 

_ I see him, _ Phil replied. He, Thomas and Teresa were there by Chancellor Anderson’s request - observe and provide moral support. However, all Phil felt was a heavy sadness at what he knew was going to happen to his friends, and a yearning to find some way to stop the Maze Trials from going ahead. The three of them had stayed silent since arriving.

 

Minho stood about ten boys away from the three of them stood, and he’d been fidgeting all morning. Now, though, it had turned into something worse - his body reminded Phil of a cocked gun, his muscles coiled as if he were about to spring into action.

 

_ Man. _ Thomas observed Minho.  _ There’s no way he’d try something again. Right? _

 

There were plenty of things present to upset Minho, though. Inside the medical rooms, clearly visible from the hallway, menacing devices hung over each bed. They looked like robotic masks - metallic and full of wires and tubes. Phil could only imagine what the contraptions would do.

 

_ Follow my lead, _ Teresa instructed, pushing away from the wall and walking towards Minho. Phil and Thomas glanced at each other, then followed behind her. She had an air of authority about her; the medical attendants barely glanced her way. Stopping when she got to Minho, she put a hand on his shoulder. Minho flinched, and seemed for an instant as though he were about to strike out, but then his eyes met hers and a wave of calm seemed to wash over him, relaxing his muscles as it flowed through his body. Tears formed in his eyes, which surprised Phil.

 

“It’s okay,” Teresa assured him. “Don’t make it worse by fighting them. Everything will be fine inside the Maze. You’ll see.”

 

“Aren’t you going in with us?” Minho asked. His response took the three of them by surprise.

 

“Uh, w-well…” Teresa stammered.

 

“Not yet,” Phil quickly interjected, leaving it at that, hoping Minho wouldn’t dig further.

 

A hint of anger flushed Minho’s face again, only this time, it set firmly. “Seriously? So you’re telling me not to fight  _ them _ ? Are you sure you don’t mean  _ us _ ? What exactly are you doing here, Phil? Any of you? I don’t see you three being poked and prodded like cattle.”

 

Dan, only four boys away, turned to look at the three. “I hate to say it, but Minho has a point. You’re just going to toss us into an experiment, then go back to your nice, comfy beds and relax?”

 

Alby, a few feet down the hall, on the other side of Minho, looked at them for a moment. “Were you ever going to tell us? Or just let us think you were going in, then,  _ surprise! _ ” His voice was bitter.

 

Phil was utterly lost for words. Until now, he’d tried to convince himself that he was the same as his friends, that they didn’t care that he’d been separated from them, that he had different responsibilities than they did. He’d told himself that they saw him, Thomas and Teresa as equals, as friends, but it seemed he’d been wrong. How could he ever have thought it wouldn’t matter? That it wouldn’t blow up in his face?

 

“What? Forget the script you’re supposed to follow?” Alby bit. “Or are you just worried about upsetting your buddies?” He nodded towards the doctors and nurses, who were all continuing their work as if nothing was happening.

 

His friends’ words hurt Phil more than they should have. Perhaps it was the fact that they were coming from people he trusted, people he cared about, people he considered family, more so than even his own father.

 

“Guys, come on.” Teresa was the first to find her voice. “We’re no different from anyone else. We just do what they ask.”

 

“Say whatever makes you feel better,” Alby responded, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. He looked the other way. He and the others were understandably on edge.

 

Suddenly, the truth hit Phil like a truck, the awful reality making itself clear as day, refusing to be ignored. His friends were being sent into the Maze, and he wasn’t. He wasn’t like them, and he never would be. He would always be different, no matter how long he spent trying to fool himself. And tomorrow, while Phil remained safe in the WICKED complex, his friends would be in a maze full of deadly Grievers.

 

His friends stood with their backs against the wall, looking angrily at him, Thomas and Teresa, as if they’d been lying to them the entire time. Even Newt, down at the other end of the hall, was glaring at them. It was Dan’s face, though, that crushed Phil the most. There was no anger there, but rather utter betrayal. His face said that Phil had broken his trust, and at that, Phil’s world began to fall apart.

 

Minho, although remaining silent, maintained his fierce, coiled-snake posture, face hard. Anger, fear, anxiety about what was in store - Phil understood, to some extent, how they felt.

 

Minho flung Teresa’s hand off his shoulder. “Alby and Dan are right,” he agreed. “I’ve tried and tried to give you guys the benefit of the doubt. I thought you were going to be able to help us. But now it’s obvious what you were doing. You’ve been helping them the whole time. It’s all been about getting ready to do  _ this _ to  _ us _ , hasn’t it?” He pounded his chest twices as he emphasised the words.

 

“Minho, listen-” Teresa began.

 

“ _ Get out of my face! _ ”  Minho yelled.

 

Everything seemed to be collapsing, and Phil could think of nothing to say. Five minutes ago, he’d considered Dan, Newt, Alby, and Minho to be his best friends, people who understood his mind and heart, who saw him the same way he saw them. And now here they were, on opposite sides, Phil wanting nothing more to somehow put an end to this, and they hated him. They hated him, and it was his fault for doing what WICKED told him, for letting their punishments scare him into obedience.

 

Down the hall, someone began to approach them - it was Gally. He’d left his place in line; two nurses followed him, trying to catch up to him before he reached them. His face was aflame with anger - no, not anger, Phil realised as the boy came closer. Fear.

 

“Thomas!” Gally yelled, picking up his pace. “You have to help us! Can’t you help us?” Two orderlies grabbed the boy before he could get any closer, holding him back. “We know you have some power with them. Help us!” He sounded desperate, struggling to keep his eyes on the three of them as the orderlies roughly turned him around and dragged him into an exam room.

 

Phil felt powerless. His heart broke over and over as he looked at the boys who had been his friends. Minho, Alby, Newt. Dan, the first friend he’d ever had, who’d introduced hope into his life for the first time. Their eyes brimmed with resentment and betrayal. How had they all gotten here?

 

Beside Phil, Thomas opened his mouth, a desperate sorrow on his face. Before he said anything, though, something changed. All the emotion on his face vanished, as if a switched had been flipped; his eyes went completely blank.

 

_ Thomas? _ Phil tried to talk to him, and although he knew Thomas heard him, he didn’t give any indication that he had.

 

Thomas’ mouth opened, and he spoke almost robotically, as though he were repeating what someone else had said. He didn’t sound like himself, and Phil felt incredibly uneasy. “I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

 

A million questions formed on Phil’s lips, but before he could say any of them, Dan spoke up, his voice so full of sorrow that it stopped Phil in his tracks.

 

“Please, Phil. You have to do something. You have to stop this.” He wasn’t angry, but he was so desperately sad, and somehow, that was worse.

 

Phil swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat, trying to hold back the tears that had begun to form in his eyes. “I’ll try,” he promised. “I swear I’ll try.”

 

No sooner had he gotten the words out, though, than something shifted inside him, something clicking in his brain, as though a hand was reaching inside his body, manipulating him. As though possessed, he lost complete control of his body, lost it to someone or something else. No matter how hard he tried to move, to speak, his body remained completely still. It was as if Phil had suddenly turned into a statue. He was terrified, but he couldn’t even widen his eyes.

 

Somehow he knew that this was what had happened to Thomas, and he had a strong suspicion WICKED was the cause. Phil strained with all his effort, but he remained silent. He had become a prisoner in his body, unable to do anything of his own free will.

 

And then he watched, frozen, helpless, screaming on the inside, as his friends were taken away.


	29. 229.11.22, 9:37AM

The moment the door of the medical room closed behind his friends, Phil regained control of his body. Immediately, he looked at Thomas; they didn’t need to use telepathy to communicate what had just happened.

 

“We have to do something.” Despair covered Thomas’ face.

 

“But what? They’re in the medical rooms right now. It’s too late for that,” Teresa pointed out.

 

“No.” Phil shook his head, refusing to believe her, refusing to give in. “It’s not too late. We can still change this.”

 

“How?” The single word was spoken sadly, and Teresa looked him right in the eyes, as though begging him to see sense.

 

Phil paused for a moment. In his head, he ran over all the possibilities he could think of, coming to rest on one he knew was a bad idea, but that might just work.

 

“I have an idea. I’ll be back soon.”

 

With that, he turned around and walked quickly through the hallways of the complex, on his way to talk to someone he hoped against hope would help him.

 

\---------------

 

Phil knocked on his father’s door three times, barely waiting to be invited in before opening the door and stepping inside.

 

His father didn’t look at all surprised to see him, instead looking as though he’d been expecting him. He sighed deeply. “Listen, Philip, I know you’re upset-”

 

Phil did something he usually would never have dreamed of doing: he cut his father off. “You have to stop this. Call it off.”

 

His father looked taken aback at the unexpected interruption, but continued speaking. “This is necessary, Philip. I thought you would understand that by now.”

 

“I’m some clueless kid anymore! You can’t… you can’t manipulate me into thinking WICKED is good!” Phil knew raising his voice at his father was a bad idea, he knew he was behaving irrationally, but at that moment, he didn’t care. He was riled up, he was angry, he was scared for his friends - even though they seemed to despise him, he didn’t want them to get hurt. He didn’t want any of Group A or Group B to get hurt. At that moment, Phil Lester was a whirlwind of emotions, and he didn’t give a damn about what was a good idea.

 

“I’m not manipulating you, Philip. The Maze Trials must go ahead.”

 

“Why?” Phil struggled to stop himself from yelling. “Did you forget that Thomas, Teresa and I know about the plans? We know what you’re planning to do, and we know you’re planning to make it even worse for the people in there. Why do you have to be so cruel?”

 

“We aren’t being cruel, Philip. Don’t be childish.”

 

“Not wanting to hurt people is not childish!”

 

“Philip, please calm down,” his father ordered tiredly.

 

“Why should I calm down? I’ve done what you say all my life. You tortured me into doing what you say when I was eight.  _ Eight. _ Do you remember that?” Phil felt a grim satisfaction at the look of guilt that flickered briefly on his father’s face.

 

“What happened when you were eight was a mutual decision made by multiple members of staff - whom I shall not name - in order to stop you from becoming too rebellious and potentially setting our research back by not helping.” His father was gradually beginning to lose his cool.

 

“It was a way of controlling me. We both know it. I may not be as old as you, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Just call off the Maze Trials, okay? I know you have the power to do it!”

 

“It’s not that simple, Philip. We’ve been working on this for so long, we can’t just not proceed.”

 

“Who the hell cares? Why are you trying to justify torturing kids?”

 

“Surely you understand that we can’t afford to throw everything we’ve worked for to waste. Think of all the work you’ve done for the Maze Trials. Do you really want years of effort to be for nothing?”

 

“I don’t care about years of effort, I care about an entire group of people not getting hurt!”

 

“Philip, stop being so immature. All we plan to do is vital to what we’re trying to achieve.” His father’s voice was raised now. Logically, Phil knew he should stop, but the only thought in his mind was that he had to do something,  _ anything _ , to save his friends.

 

“But there has to be another way!” Phil paused. “Please. You’ve broken them enough already.”

 

His father’s gaze hardened, and he shouted the next words. “There is no ‘other way’! Stop talking as if you’re some righteous hero! Don’t you think I’ve considered every possible method? Believe, if there was any other way to get what we need, we would do that, but there isn’t. This is for the benefit of humanity!”

 

“You don’t have to do this though!” Phil pleaded. “Wasn’t what you did to Minho enough? Aren’t you satisfied with torturing one child? Why make it forty?”

 

“Philip, be reasonable! How many times must I tell you that this is what we have to do?”

 

“Stop using the same excuse over and over! Don’t try and make yourself feel better about potentially killing children in order to get one tiny little-”

 

Phil was stopped in his tracks by a sharp, stinging pain on his cheek. He gasped, hand flying to his cheek. His father had hit him. After all that had happened to him at the hands of WICKED he shouldn’t be surprised, but wasn’t his father supposed to care about him? From what Phil had heard, fathers were supposed to care about their children, and be kind, not hit them to make them stop talking. The blow was a physical confirmation of what he’d believed deep down for a long time - his father didn’t really care about him. He cared about the prodigy, about the elite student. But he’d never cared for Phil.

 

Phil looked his father in the eye defiantly, unblinking, and felt the grim satisfaction he’d felt before return when his father broke eye contact first. For a few seconds neither of them said anything, both knowing that the last thread of their familial bond had been broken.

 

“Go back to your room,” Phil father said quietly, breaking the silence.

 

Phil considered, for a split second, refusing. He could always ask his father more about the Maze Trials, about just how beneficial hurting the children could be. At the same time, though, he knew it wasn’t an option.

 

He turned and walked out of the white office, his father watching him as he left.


	30. 229.11.22, 10:54AM

Phil returned to his room. He didn’t see the point of going there, since it was only around half past ten in the morning, but he knew better than to disobey his father when he was angry. Although their… conversation… had ended on bad terms, Phil hoped that what he’d said would be enough to make his father rethink the Maze Trials. Maybe, after what Phil had said, he wouldn’t be so harsh on the people in the Maze.

 

Silently, he sat his bed, staring at nothing, thinking of everything that had happened that day. His friends had been ripped away from him, their last impressions before they were separated that he had betrayed them. He’d felt his body be taken over by WICKED - he knew it was them who had forced him to stay still. He’d argued with his father, and his father had hit him for it. While Phil was grateful it hadn’t been worse, he still felt unhappy. Deep down, he’d been holding onto some kind of hope that his father cared about him, but he realised just how naive the thought had been.

 

It was Dr Paige who knocked on Phil’s door about half an hour after he’d returned to his room. After asking if she could come in, she pulled the chair out from the desk and sat down. Phil sat on the bed, facing her.

 

“I’m sorry about what happened,” she began.

 

“It’s fine.” Phil shook his head.

 

“No, Phil.” Dr Paige sighed. “I don’t know what happened. All I know is your father’s side of the story, but that might be biased. I’m inclined to believe that both of you were in the wrong. He shouldn’t have hit you.” Her eyes were remorseful, even though she’d had nothing to do with what had happened.

 

Phil nodded, unsure of what to say.

 

Dr Paige hesitated, as though trying to decide what to say. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Philip, but the Maze Trials are still going ahead.” Phil’s heart sank. “Your father, in a way, was right - we’ve worked on this for too long to abandon it now. However, I will do everything in my power to keep the especially harsh treatment to a minimum. It’s not much, but it’s the best I can do.”

 

“Thank you,” Phil said sincerely. “Really.” Although he would have preferred the Maze Trials to be stopped, he knew that wasn’t realistic. Keeping harsh treatment to a minimum was more than Phil had thought would happen.

 

Dr Paige nodded. “I’m sorry you have to go through this, Philip. It can’t be easy.”

 

Phil looked at the woman. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for Dan, for Newt, for Minho, Alby, Gally. For all the people that have to go into that Maze. It’s true that having my friends taken away from me wasn’t exactly the best feeling in the world. Yes, I’m scared, and sad. But the kids in the Maze, they’re going to have to go through so much. I’ve seen what the Grievers do, and now there are forty kids trapped in a maze with them. I appreciate your concern, but don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for them.”

 

For a moment, Dr Paige looked at him, her expression unreadable. Then she smiled softly. “I understand why they call you intelligent now. You’re perceptive, Philip. You understand people, and WICKED needs that.”

 

Phil looked away, not knowing how to react to the praise.

 

“This may not be exactly the right time, but I have some good news for you.” Dr Paige waited until Phil looked up before continuing. “Tomorrow, you can have the day off, and you can watch your friends in the Maze. Maybe seeing them can put your mind at rest. How does that sound?”

 

Slightly cheered up by the news, Phil nodded, a sad smile on his face. “That sounds good.”

 

“I’m glad,” Dr Paige smiled back.

 

\---------------

 

The next day, as promised, Dr Paige escorted him to the observation room in which he’d seen Minho tormented by a Griever once upon a time. Thomas was already there, intently watching the screens, but he looked up when the two of them entered. Without a word, Dr Paige left, softly closing the door.

 

“Hey, Phil,” Thomas greeted.

 

“Hey. Anything happen yet?”

 

Thomas shook his head. “Nothing really. They’re acting weird, though. Look.” He gestured to the wall of monitors, and Phil looked at the people on the screens.

 

They’d already had one night in their new home, though none of them had seen the actual Maze yet. WICKED had yet to open the doors that led to the Maze, saving that for the next day.

 

Phil watched as the boys wandered around the large courtyard which was nestled within the giant walls of the Maze. When the beetle blades got close enough to see, their faces, their _eyes_ , said all the words that never left their mouths. They were lost. They had no idea where they were. They looked disorientated, and the more Phil watched, the more something felt wrong. Everyone had peeled off, and seemed to be on their own.

 

“What’s going on?” Phil asked.

 

“I don’t know exactly,” Thomas admitted. “But I think I have some sort of idea. Look at this.”

 

He zeroed in on two boys who were talking to each other and pressed a button to get the audio feed from the monitor. Phil didn’t know the boys’ names.

 

“Do you know where we are?” The first boy’s voice was shaky. “How we got here?”

 

The other boy shook his head, looking as though he were on the verge of tears. “I don’t… I don’t even know…” He didn’t finish his sentence, instead turning walking briskly away.

 

“Stuff like this is happening all over,” Thomas explained. “None of them seem to remember anything. They’re barely talking to each other. These kids have been friends for years, but they’re acting like they don’t know each other. They don’t even seem to know their own names anymore.”

 

“How is that possible, though?” Confusion flooded Phil’s mind, and he thought back to the day before. The boys all been fine the last time Phil had seen them. But then they’d gone into those medical rooms…

 

Suddenly, it hit him. “Oh god. Those masks. WICKED must have done something to erase their memories somehow.” If that was the case, if this was something permanent, Phil couldn’t imagine anything more horrible. Their memories were all they had in this twisted world, and losing them must, Phil imagined, be losing everything you were. He could only hope this would wear off over time.

 

“Oh, man,” was the only reply Thomas could manage.

 

On one screen, Phil saw Minho walking briskly along the walls, studying every inch of the structure. Phil didn’t know how long he’d been there - he could have been doing it for hours, since before the fake sun had come up. Losing your memory, combined with being thrown into a stone prison, had to fill you with a panic beyond what most could imagine. If anything, Phil admired the group for not being completely out of order, frantic with fear.

 

Minho never stopped walking, down one expansive wall to the next, and then the next. It couldn’t have been lost on him that he was going in circles.

 

Glancing around at the wall of monitors, one scene caught Phil’s eye. The screen showed Alby sitting near the copse of trees, back against one of the skeletal pines.

 

“Thomas, look. Alby.”

 

At Phil’s words, Thomas manoeuvred the beetle blade closer to their friend, and as he did so, something came into clear view that destroyed Phil, who had (apparently incorrectly) thought he couldn’t be destroyed anymore. Alby looked completely broken, sitting so still he looked almost lifeless. Phil felt a familiar sense of anger at the fact that WICKED had managed to turn the once determined, passionate boy into nothing more than an empty shell.

 

Newt, who had been wandering around, now approached Alby slowly, as if approaching a stranger. Thomas pushed the audio button.

 

“Do you know where we are?” Newt asked.

 

Alby looked up sharply. “No, I don’t know where we are,” he snapped, as if Newt had asked him the same question a hundred times and he was sick of hearing it.

 

“Well, bloody hell, neither do I.”

 

“Yeah, I think we all get that.”

 

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither dropping his gaze. Finally Newt broke the silence. “At least I know my name - it’s Newt. And you?”

 

“Alby.” The word sounded like a guess.

 

“Well, shouldn’t we try to figure things out?”

 

“Yeah, we should.” Alby looked as mean as the night they’d been caught outside the WICKED complex.

 

“Well then?” Newt prompted.

 

“Tomorrow, man. Tomorrow. Give us a day to mope, for God’s sake.”

 

“Right.” Newt walked away, kicking a loose stone to scatter across the dusty ground.

 

\---------------

 

Later that afternoon, Minho tried to climb the wall.

 

The vines looked tempting enough, beckoning those who dared to scale the leafy ivy. Minho did just that, gripping it with white knuckled fists, finding perilous footholds as he inched his way up. Hand over hand, shifting his feet carefully, he climbed.

 

Ten feet.

 

Fifteen feet.

 

Twenty feet.

 

Twenty-five.

 

Minho stopped. He looked towards the sky then craned his neck to look back down at the ground. A crowd had gathered, cheering him on. Another couple of boys had tackled the vines as well, trying to follow their fellow prisoner’s lead.

 

Minho looked up again, then down again.Then at the wall, at his hands. Up to the sky again. The ground, the sky, the wall. His hands. Then, without any explanation, despite the abundance of ivy above him, he started back to the ground. He jumped the last few feet, then brushed his hands on his trousers.

 

“Can’t be done here,” the boy announced. “Let’s try a different spot.”

 

Three hours and all four walls later, the sky almost dark, Minho gave up. So, it seemed, did everyone else.

 

\---------------

 

When Dr Paige came for them in the evening, Phil could barely believe the whole day had already passed. To him, it felt as if he’d been watching his friends for barely half an hour.

 

“Time to go back to your rooms,” Dr Paige instructed gently.

 

She’d had their meals brought to them throughout the day, an act Phil greatly appreciated. He understood now why Thomas had said, once upon a time when they’d first met, that Dr Paige was his favourite adult at WICKED. She, unlike most, if not all, of the other adults he’d met at WICKED, was kind, caring, and sympathetic.

 

_I have an idea,_ Thomas said in Phil’s mind. Then, out loud, “Can we come back tomorrow? I feel like we need to see their reactions when the doors open for the first time. It’s important.”

 

To Phil’s surprise, Dr Paige agreed. “Okay, Thomas. That’ll be fine. You two can have breakfast in here.”

 

Thomas stood up, glancing back at the screens once before moving to the door. Although Phil didn’t want to leave his friends, he knew he had no choice. Heavy-hearted, he stood up, turning and looking at the screens behind him once more. The boys were beginning to settle down for the evening, talking in small groups, eating some of the food they’d been provided.

 

Phil turned, leaving his friends behind.

 


	31. 230.3.13, 2:36PM

Phil sat, Thomas by his side, and watched the bank of monitors across from the control deck. Perhaps it was the telepathy, or just the look on his friend’s face, but he could tell that Thomas was feeling better that day than he had felt over the past few months, which Phil was glad about. Thomas had been feeling understandably low lately, and Phil had wanted nothing more than to snap him out of his doldrums, to take his friend’s sadness and throw it far away.

 

Dr Paige continued to let them observe their friends in the Maze, on the condition that they kept up with their schedules. Since the Maze had been completed, they no longer had workdays, which meant they had a lot of free time. It was a mutual, unspoken agreement between the two of them that, while they knew WICKED was observing them as they watched their friends, there was nowhere they’d rather be.

 

The techs had installed a new display system since the beginning of the Maze Trials. Now they could choose any of the beetle blade feeds and throw it onto a much-improved centre screen, which was a full six feet across and had spectacular colour and detail, and on top of all that, improved audio.

 

Watching his friends in the Maze was bittersweet for Phil. On one hand, it was excellent that he had the chance to observe them, to listen to them talking, to feel almost as if he were there with them. On the other hand, he could observe them all day, and it would never bring them any closer. They were still tauntingly out of his reach, and they didn’t even remember who he was.

 

Thomas chose beetle blade number thirty-seven and swiped it onto the main viewing screen. The display showed Alby and a boy named George standing at the east door of the Maze, talking and laughing, both of them eating peaches they’d just plucked out of the trackhoe’s scoop. Scenes like this gave Phil a fleeting moment of comfort when they occurred. He craved shots of the boys - they had called themselves the Gladers, and the courtyard the Glade - somewhat enjoying life. For a moment, their happiness helped Phil to forget just how badly the Gladers had been treated, both at WICKED and in the Maze, and what was to come. He always ended up back in reality far too soon, though.

 

Someone knocked on the door. “Come in!” Phil called. Neither he nor Thomas looked around to see who it was when the door opened, then closed. They didn’t need to. They knew by the sound of the person’s footsteps.

 

“Hi, Chuck,” Thomas greeted.

 

“Hi,” Phil smiled.

 

“Hey, guys!” The young boy’s voice was filled with the usual enthusiasm. Pulling a chair over, he put it right next to Thomas, barely an inch away, and jumped up into the seat. “Anything happen yet?”

 

“You’re looking at it,” Thomas replied. “See that? Look really close. Look at what Alby and George are eating. You won’t believe it.”

 

Chuck leaned forwards, his hair a wild eruption as usual, and squinted at the screen, searching with all the seriousness he could muster.

 

“Looks like peaches,” he said finally.

 

“Bingo,” Phil answered, slapping Chuck on the back. “You might be the best analyst in all of WICKED.”

 

“Hardy har har.” That was Chuck’s favourite response when Phil, Thomas or Teresa teased him. “You so funny.” That was his second favourite.

 

After continuous begging from both Thomas and Phil, Dr Paige had allowed Chuck to serve as their ‘assistant’ for an hour or two each day. It had become clear that WICKED appreciated the insights Thomas and Phil provided, and they insisted that they needed a third mind to bounce ideas off of. Teresa was often too busy learning about computer systems on top of her normal schedule to come to the observation room.

 

Although they both told WICKED they were preparing Chuck to do great things, the two of them shared an unspoken truth. They needed Chuck because he was a beacon of light. Both Thomas and Phil had experienced far more than their share of bad things, quite a few of those events having been together, and when they only had each other, and despite the fact that they enjoyed each other’s company greatly, after a while the memories of all they’d been through came crashing down on them. Chuck’s bright, bouncy personality was a welcome distraction from the sadness that sometimes threatened to engulf them. Besides, Chuck was their friend, and even if they hadn’t been feeling so down, they would still have greatly enjoyed his company.

 

_ Hey, what are you guys doing?  _ Teresa asked. _ I just finished prepping the next kid to go in. It’s Box time for him tomorrow morning. Poor guy. _

 

_ We’re in the observation room, _ Thomas answered.  _ I’ll give you three guesses who’s here with us, and the first two don’t count. _

 

_ Sweet little Chucky-Chuck? _ Phil felt Teresa beam. All three of them had a soft spot for the kid.  _ Mind if I come join you guys? _

 

_ Are you kidding? _ Phil asked. _ It’s never the same without you. _

 

She didn’t respond right away. From the look on Thomas’ face, she’d said something to him. Phil was curious, but whatever had been said was between Thomas and Teresa alone.

 

Thomas said something back to Teresa, then opened his mind back up so Phil could hear what he said next.  _ Now get your butt over here. _

 

Teresa arrived in the observation room a few minutes later. Slipping inside without saying anything, she pulled up a chair next to Phil. The whole routine was as comfortable and familiar as a well-worn pair of shoes. Chuck looked over and winked at Teresa - flirting with an older girl was his idea of hilarious - then gave a thumbs-up.

 

“How are you, Chuck?” Teresa asked. “Been sent to your room yet today?”

 

“No, ma’am,” he replied, batting his eyelashes. “Perfect little angel, just like always.”

 

“I bet,” she replied. Reaching over both Phil and Thomas, she grabbed a piece of skin on Chuck’s leg, then wrenched it hard.

 

Chuck yelped in pain and leaped from his chair, hopping up and down as he rubbed at the sore spot. “Not cool!” He yelled. “Not cool!”

 

“That’s for stealing the devilled eggs from my lunch tray when I went back for a drink.” Teresa raised an eyebrow. “You know how much I love devilled eggs.”

 

“What?” Chuck asked. “How did you…” He looked at Thomas, then at Phil. “She’s some kind of mind reader.”

 

“Don’t mess with Teresa.” Thomas slowly shook his head, as if in awe of her powers. “If I teach you nothing else in life, my son, it’s that. Don’t mess with Teresa.”

 

“She can be downright scary sometimes,” Phil added, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

 

“Come here, you little devilled egg,” Teresa grinned, now chasing Chuck around the room, trying to smother him in hugs. For all his jokes about flirting, he hated it when she did that. Phil laughed fondly at the sight of them.

 

Sometimes, things weren’t so bad.


	32. 230.3.14, 7:18AM

Another insertion day. This time, a boy named Zart. Earlier that morning, Phil, Thomas and Teresa, accompanied by Chuck, had watched him be put into the Box; now they were about to witness his journey into the Glade. They’d sent Chuck back to his room, not wanting him to see the pure anguish the boys felt upon first waking up.

 

Zart awoke in darkness, the cameras in the Box barely able to catch his movements. He said nothing at first, stumbling around the metal compartment as though drunk. But then he seemed to become awake of everything - the loss of memory, the strange place, the movement, the sounds - and panicked, pounding on the walls, screaming “Help me! Help me!” over and over.

 

The hysteria went on, until Phil could barely watch out of a deep sorrow; a cut on his fist burst open, slicking his hands with blood. Finally he collapsed to the floor, then crawled into a corner. Pulling his legs in close to his chest, he wrapped his arms around them. At first, his tears were only a trickle, but then the sobs came, his shoulders shaking as he cried.

 

When the Box came to a stop, a bubble of silence filled the air, seeming as though it might pop and explode at the slightest touch. Zart almost jumped out of his clothes when the ceiling suddenly popped and squealed, two doors grinding as they slid open. The light of ten burning suns blinded him from above, and pressing his hands to his eyes,  he rolled back and forth on the floor as he groaned.

 

Phil heard rustling, whispers, light laughter from above the boy. Finally, Zart peeked through his fingers, actually able to see.He saw a square of light, silhouettes of thirty boys wrapped around it, all of their heads bent, looking down at him. Some of them elbowed their neighbour, pointed, sniggered.

 

A rope dropped, the loop tied at its end landing right in front of him. He stood, put his foot in the loop, held onto the rope with both hands. Pulling him up, they dragged him over the edge of the Box and lifted him to his feet. Three or four boys dusted him off, hitting him harder than they needed to, but somehow their whoops and laughs made it all seem okay, like old friends welcoming home a lost soul.

 

A tall boy with brown hair stepped up to him, held out a hand. Zart took it, shook.

 

“My name’s George,” he said. “Welcome to the Glade.”


	33. 230.3.15, 3:15PM

The day had gone much like the ones before it. Breakfast, a couple of classes, more time in the observation room. Lunch, then back the the observation room. All the while, Thomas and Teresa had been there with Phil; Chuck joined them once his afternoon classes were finished.

 

Phil didn’t know exactly what his role at WICKED had become. For the first few years of his life, he’d done nothing but lessons. Then, when he was seven, he started working in the labs, with lessons two days a week. Around six years ago, he had switched from the labs to the Maze Trials. So what now? What happened now WICKED had no project to assign him to? Before, they had been strict about what he could do and where he could go; now it seemed they let him do whatever he wanted, go wherever he wanted.

 

Phil ate his meals in the cafeteria with the people who hadn’t yet been sent into the Maze, but things weren’t the same as when his friends had been there. The rest of Group A was nice enough, but Phil missed his friends.

 

“What’s going on over there?” Teresa asked, pointing to one of the monitors on the right. Phil threw it onto the large central display to get a better look.

 

A group of boys, led by Alby and Newt, were standing suspiciously around a lean-to of lumber scraps against the stone wall near the northwest corner of the Glade. WICKED had started the boys off with a small, simple structure in which they could take shelter, with the hopes that the group would add to it as supplies were sent in, take some initiative, improve their living conditions. They’d started messing around with the idea in the past couple of weeks, and they’d collected all the spare wood they had and rested it against the wall. Some boys had even slept under there the last few nights.

 

But now the group standing at its opening nearest the corner of the walls looked troubled. They stood oddly, for one thing, too close together, as if they didn’t want the beetle blades to catch a view of what was inside the lean-to. Twisting their heads this way and that, they scanned the area around them like criminals waiting for a getaway car. Alby and Newt were whispering furiously to each other, either arguing or mutually worried about something.

 

“What’re they up to?” Thomas asked quietly.

 

Teresa pushed a communications button that linked to the command room, where the higher-up scientists worked.

 

“Any way we can get a beetle blade in there?” Teresa asked whoever was listening.

 

“Nope,” replied a man. One of the Psychs, probably. They didn’t interact with the subjects much, if ever, even with Phil, Thomas and Teresa. “We want to see this play out before we let them know we’re watching closely.”

 

“Can’t we at least zoom in from where it’s at right now?” Thomas asked.

 

“We’ll do our best,” the man replied curtly. “Command room out.” There was a loud click that he obviously made audible on purpose. In other words,  _ ‘Leave us alone’ _ . They were like that sometimes.

 

Movement on the display caught Phil’s attention. Alby had leaned into the triangular shelter and was struggling with something, his body tense with exertion. Newt joined the effort, and then they were dragging something out of the darkness and into the grey light - the false sun had already been eclipsed by the huge wall on the west side and thrown that area of the Glade into shadow.

 

“What is that?” Phil asked quietly, almost to himself.

 

“It’s a person!” Chuck yelled, making Phil almost jump out of his skin.

 

Chuck was right. Alby and Newt both held onto one leg each, dragging a person to the junction of the north and west walls. When they got there, Alby did something completely unexpected: he knelt next to the boy and punched him in the face. Teresa yelped in shock, and Thomas scooted a couple of feet backwards. Phil gasped audibly. Alby reared back and punched the boy again, then again. Newt grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away.

 

“Can you tell who it is?” Teresa asked.

 

Chuck had walked around the control deck so that his eyes were only about ten centimetres from the screen. “I know him. That’s George.”

 

“The one who welcomed Zart into the Glade?” Thomas asked. “That was barely over twenty-four hours ago. How could everything have gone wrong since then?”

 

“ _ What _ went wrong?” Phil added. “What happened to make Alby try to beat the hell out of this guy? He wouldn’t just do it for no reason.”

 

One of the camera views on the left side of the main display blurred into motion, the beetle blade scuttling as fast as it could through the growth of vines.

 

“Chuck, get back over here,” Thomas instructed, sounding slightly agitated. “I can’t see all the views.”

 

Chuck obeyed, the look on his face somewhere between fear and glee. Quickly grabbing the screen he wanted, Thomas swiped it onto the main display in the centre. Just as it settled there, the camera angle popped out of the vines and showed a bird’s-eye view of Alby, Newt and George. Despite the noise the beetle blade must have made in its hurry, none of the boys seemed to notice. Now Phil and his friends in the observation room could see everything in perfect detail, and could hear their every breath and movement.

 

George looked awful. He squirmed on the ground, muscles clenched as if they’d been permanently locked that way, cramped and tight. His eyes bulged, his lips pressed together in a pale line; the skin of his face looked as if it had been ripped off, boiled, then stapled back on. He barely looked real. As he writhed as if feeling the worst pain imaginable, he let out sharp, rabid-sounding moans through his closed mouth.

 

“What the bloody hell is wrong with him?” Newt shouted.

 

Another boy stood by him now, someone Thomas didn’t know. “I told you guys,” the boy said. “We were out exploring the Maze. He was always ahead of me. I heard all these mechanical sounds, and then Georgie screamed. I could barely get him back here.” He looked angry, seething as he spoke.

 

“Who’s that?” Thomas asked.

 

“His name’s Nick,” Chuck responded. “Picks his nose.”

 

Thomas tore his gaze from the display to look at Chuck. “Seriously? Now?”

 

“That’s all I know about him!”

 

“I didn’t want the others to see him,” Alby said on the screen. “It’d get everybody spooked. Fat chance of avoiding that now.”

 

“Well, why were you just hitting him in the face?” Nick demanded. “He’s my friend, you know. He needs medical help, not some hothead beating on him.”

 

“He was trying to freaking bite me!” Alby yelled in Nick’s face. “Back off!”

 

“Boys, slim it.” Newt stepped in between them. “Let’s figure this out. What do we do?”

 

They stood over George, who seemed to have gotten worse. His head looked almost as if it might explode from the swelling, and he was beetroot-red and puffy. Veins bulged along his forehead and temples. And his eyes… they were enormous. Phil had never seen anything like it.

 

“Did you see what attacked him?” Alby asked Nick, seeming to have forgotten that a few seconds ago they had been at each other’s throats.

 

Nick shook his head. “Saw nothing.”

 

“Did George say anything?” Newt asked.

 

Nick nodded. “Well, yeah, I think so. Not sure, but… I think he kept whispering, ‘it stung me, it stung me, it stung me…’ It was weird, man. He sounded like he was possessed or something. What are we gonna do?”

 

For some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on, what Nick had said sent a shiver down Phil’s spine.

 

_ It stung me. _


	34. 230.3.15, 5:01PM

“Come on,” Alby instructed, leaning down to grab George’s legs. “No use trying to hide this anymore. Let’s get him out to the middle of the Glade and gather everybody. See if anyone knows what to do.”

 

At that exact moment, Newt looked up, straight into the camera. For a moment, it seemed to Phil as though Newt was looking him in the eye. It felt like simultaneously being hugged by his friend again and punched in the stomach.

 

Newt cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Hey! Whoever sent us here! Send us some medicine. How about a bloody doctor? Better yet, why don’t you take us out of this hellhole?”

 

Phil still couldn’t quite believe that Newt and the others truly didn’t know who’d sent them there, or even that an organisation called WICKED even existed. All they knew was this strange life they’d been thrown into, at the centre of a maze, and that there were cameras on the tips of robotic insects running around the place. Only now, it looked like they were going to know all too well about the Grievers, too.

 

_ It stung me. _ Phil had known nothing about being stung. It had to have something to do with one of those metal appendages that extended from the creatures’ bodies.

 

The boys had picked George up - it took four of them because he was thrashing so hard. The sounds he was making were horrible - haunting moans that made Phil want to cover his ears.

 

The group reached the small structure they’d started calling the Homestead and headed for the centre area of the Glade, never the opening to the Box. Other boys - some working in the garden, some in the the farm animal area, others just milling about - noticed the situation immediately, and soon the rest of the Gladers were gathered around George, who was half placed, half dropped on the ground by his frustrated bearers.

 

Because they’d been noticed anyway, WICKED had dropped any pretence of not observing and swarmed in with the beetle blades. Various angles of the scene flashed up on the monitors in the room; Thomas chose the best one and put the display front and centre.

 

“Listen up!” Nick yelled. Phil was a little surprised that Alby hadn’t taken charge. “Georgie and I were out in the Maze, running the corridors, and he got up ahead of me. Something attacked him. He keeps saying he got stung. Anybody know anything about that?”

 

“Minho’s seen some kind of creature out there,” Alby mentioned. “Where is he?”

 

“Still running,” answered Dan, who stood in the innermost part of the crowd, closest to George. “Probably taking a nap in one of the Deadheads.”

 

“It was one of those creatures he talked about, though,” Alby mused. “Had to be.”

 

“It doesn’t really matter what it was.” Nick pointed down at George, who was curled into a right ball, rocking back and forth on his side. “What are we going to do to him? All we have is a bunch of aspirin and bandages.”

 

“There was something weird in the cooking supplies they sent up last week.” A tall, dark-skinned boy stepped out of the crowd, walking over to stand right next to Nick.

 

“What are you talking about, Siggy?” Alby asked the boy.

 

“His name’s Frypan!” Phil couldn’t see who’d called the words out. “You’re the only one who doesn’t call him that!”

 

A few snickers broke out; the sound couldn’t have been more incongruous to the situation, given the boy writhing in agony at their feet.

 

Nick ignored everyone, although Phil noticed Alby throw around a few harsh looks.

 

“It was in the bottom of a cardboard box,” Siggy - Frypan - continued. “Some kind of syringe, had the word  _ serum _ printed on it. I figured it was a mistake - somebody had accidentally dropped it in there, or whatever. Threw it out with the sausage leftovers this morning.”

 

Alby stepped up to the boy and grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him close.

 

“Slim it, Alby,” Dan warned.

 

Alby ignored him. “You threw it out? Didn’t bother telling anybody? No wonder you want to cook - ain’t got brains for nothing else.”

 

Siggy smiled. “If that makes you feel smarter.  Anyway, I’m telling you know, aren’t I? Slim it.”

 

“Where’d you throw it away?” Nick asked. “Maybe it’s not broken. Let’s at least take a look at it.”

 

“Be right back.” Siggy jogged off towards the Homestead.

 

It only took three or four minutes for the boy to return, a slender metallic cylinder in his hand, but by the time he came back, George had plummeted from bad to worse - or rather, from worse to worst. He’d gone completely still, except for his chest, which moved rapidly as he gasped for air. His jaw had gone slack, his limbs loose, and his muscles relaxed. Phil could tell that George didn’t have much time left.

 

“WICKED won’t let him die, right?” Chuck asked. “This is just some kind of test. They want to see how everyone reacts.”

 

Teresa, who was sitting next to Chuck, patted him on the back. “That’s what the syringe is for. I’m sure of it. They just need to hurry.”

 

She spoke in Thomas and Phil’s minds.  _ This is not going to end well. _

 

Phil gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, then returned his attention to the screen. Siggy had given the syringe to Nick, who knelt by George’s side. The sick boy - the  _ stung _ boy - hardly moved at all now, barely breathing. His eyes looked empty of life.

 

“Anyone know how to do this?” Nick called out. “Where to stick it?”

 

“Anywhere!” Alby yelled. “Just hurry up and do it! Look at him!”

 

No one else replied, so Nick took the syringe, braced his thumb against it, then stabbed it into George’s arm. The boy didn’t even flinch. Nick pressed the plunger down until all the fluid was gone; then, dropping the empty syringe on the ground, he stood up and took a couple of steps back. Everyone gave George some space, but stayed close to watch what might happen, cutting off the camera’s view of the body.

 

“Come on, Georgie,” Nick breathed.

 

A long, silent moment passed, with no sound but the rustling of a soft breeze through the Glade. Phil held his breath in anticipation, barely aware he was doing so.

 

Suddenly the boys parted, scrambling backwards, and an inhuman roar filled the air. George was on his feet, mouth open, face stretched in a painful grimace. He shouted in a strained voice, “Griever! It was a damn Griever! They’ll kill us all!” The words came out of him like the percussion of a distant explosion.

 

He suddenly ran at the boy closest to him, jumped on him, started pounding him. Phil looked on, shocked, barely able to comprehend what he was seeing. Alby and Nick tried to pull George off the boy, but he swatted them away, lunging at Nick with his teeth bared.

 

“What the…” Teresa whispered.

 

George clawed at the boy, drawing blood on his cheeks, on his mouth. Next he went for the eyes, screaming the whole time. The boy under him fought back, screaming in pain as he tried to twist his body out from under his attacker, but George seemed to have the strength of a thousand men. Pressing his victim down with one hand, he punched him in the face. Then he went for the boy’s eyes again, an animalistic howl escaping his mouth.

 

It was insanity. It seemed as though George had gone from having the flu to being a fully-fledged Crank in the space of just a few short minutes. A blur of movement came from the right; Phil saw Alby, running at full speed towards George. At some point, he had left the scene, but now he returned at a charge.

 

In his hands, held up next his shoulders, as if he were a seasoned warrior of ancient days, he held a long, thin shaft of wood. It appeared to be a broken broom or shovel handle, its end a splintery, sharp point.

 

“Get out of the way!” Alby yelled, feet thundering across the dusty ground.

 

Phil looked back at George, saw that his hands were digging into his victim’s eye sockets, the boy screaming in agony.

 

Alby reached him and thrust the makeshift spear into the back of George’s neck with enough force that it burst through to the other side. George’s cries turned into choking gargles as he went limp and collapsed. The boy scrambled out from underneath him, his hands covering his injured face.

 

George twitched, moaned, then went still.

 

Blood darkened the dirt and stone below him.


	35. 230.3.15, 5:52PM

Phil stared at the screen in shock, unmoving, his brain trying to process what he had just witnessed. It had all been so sudden… someone had just died… all the blood…

 

Phil thought he heard someone talking, but couldn’t focus on what they were saying. He’d known the Maze Trials weren’t exactly going to be fun, he’d known there would be cruelty at times, but he hadn’t thought anyone would actually die. And not like this.

 

He stared at the screen in a state of numb shock, his eyes not seeing the image display on the monitor. Instead, he was replaying what had just happened over and over in his head - George clawing at the boy’s face, trying to gouge his eyes out, the  _ spear _ , the spear entering George’s body, the blood.

 

A hand on Phil’s arm broke him out of his trance. He looked around to see Teresa looking him, her eyes full of worry.

 

“Phil? Are you okay?”

 

For a moment, Phil didn’t say anything. Then, without a word, he got up and left the observation room, walking without a destination in mind. He didn’t even think about where he was going, his mind still filled with thoughts of what had just happened in the Maze. It was only when he had closed the door behind him that he realised he had ended up in his room.

 

Phil stood there, thinking, gradually beginning to think clearly again. A boy - a  _ child _ \- had just been killed. Another had been attacked. A third had had to make the decision to kill a friend before the situation got out of hand. And around thirty others had witnessed the event, as well as him, Thomas, Teresa and Chuck. Oh, Chuck. Poor, innocent Chuck. He was the youngest of them all, still naive and innocent in his belief that the Maze might not be so bad.

 

Slowly, a boiling anger began to form in the pit of Phil’s stomach. How could WICKED have let this happen? They were responsible for this. They were the ones who had put the boys in the Maze in the first place. Phil was sure that WICKED could have done something to prevent this horrible tragedy, but as always, they’d chosen to let it ‘play out’. And now a boy was dead, and the rest would surely never be able to forget what had happened.

 

His anger reaching a climax, blinding him, Phil punched the white wall, letting his rage out. With both hands, he pounded the wall again and again, feeling a grim satisfaction when several of his knuckles split open. He continued punching, both the wall and his hands becoming smeared with blood. Both Thomas and Teresa called his name in his head, but he ignored them, his mind a whirlwind, pent-up anger mixing with his anger at George’s death. Phil didn’t know how long he would have continued for, had Thomas and Teresa not opened his door.

 

“Phil! What are you doing?” Teresa ran to him, grabbing his wrists, and looked him in the eye. The moment the two of them made eye contact, all the fight drained out of him, and tears built in his eyes. She hugged him, and he began to silently cry, clinging on to her. Thomas joined in the hug, and for a few minutes, they stood there, each of them holding onto the other two as if they were the only things stopping them from drowning, each of them thinking of the same thing. Of George.

 

Finally, Teresa stepped back, taking a deep breath. “We’re going to find them. To get some answers. Are you coming?”

 

Phil swallowed. Nodded. The three of them left the room.

 

\---------------

 

Thomas banged on the door. “Let us in!”

 

The main command room was off limits to anyone younger than twenty-one. He’d heard someone say that once, but it sounded like a formality invented to keep them out. He and his friends were only part of the team when it was convenient for WICKED.

 

Thomas raised his fist to pound the door again when there was a click, followed by a hiss; then the big metal slab swung open. A man he’d never seen before stood there, short and stocky with dark hair. He didn’t look at all pleased.

 

“What’s the problem, Thomas?” The man’s voice was surprisingly calm. “Things are a little crazy in here right now.”

 

“You keep saying we’re important, that we’re a part of all this.” Thomas gestured to himself, to Phil, to Teresa. “We helped programme your Maze. And helped send all our friends there. And now we just watched one of them die and you did nothing to stop it. Why? Why didn’t you guys go in and help? Someone needs to explain what happened, and someone’s going to do it right now.” Thomas was shaking, barely holding himself together. Phil hoped his friend wouldn’t do anything reckless.

 

Several emotions passes across the man’s face. The last was anger.

 

“Hold on,” he instructed, then closed the door without waiting for a response. Thomas reached out to bang on the door again, but Teresa grabbed him, shook her head.

 

_ They’ll talk to us, _ she said silently.  _ Just show a little patience. We have to act as calm as they do in these situations if we’re ever going to get anywhere. _

 

Thomas looked as though he was going to say something, but then he did as Teresa said, letting out a breath. Together, the three of them waited.

 

Less than a minute later, the door opened again. This time, it was Dr Leavitt who stood there, unhappy as always, but before he sould say anything, Dr Paige appeared at his side, practically pushing him out of the way.

 

“Thomas. Teresa. Philip.” Her voice was kind. “I’m sure you must be as concerned as we are.”

 

“Well, yeah, we are,” Teresa replied. You guys are okay with killing kids now?”

 

Phil didn’t know if he would have been brave enough to say it so bluntly, but what Teresa said was true. WICKED really had just murdered George. A mere teenager.

 

Dr Paige stepped to the side, opening the door wider. “Come in. We’ll explain to you what happened. What went wrong. You deserve to know.”

 

“Yeah, I think we do,” Phil agreed, trying to keep the stony expression from his face.

 

The three of them followed Dr Paige as she led them down a short, narrow hallway and into a vast room that opened to both sides. To Phil’s right was an array of monitors, workstations, control desks and chairs. It looked like their own observation room, only twenty times bigger. About two dozen people were going about various duties in the huge space. To Phil’s left were several desks, a glass-enclosed meeting room and a few closed doors, hiding mysteries unknown to Phil. It made him remember that he really only saw a tiny piece of WICKED’s vast operation. All he saw was what they wanted him to see.

 

“I don’t want anyone else talking to you about this right now.” Dr Paige addressed them over her shoulder as she walked through the middle of all the activity. “Let’s find a quiet spot and I’ll explain to you what’s happened. I wish you trusted us - trusted me - a little more than you’ve shown just now. Maybe give us the benefit of the doubt.”

 

“Benefit of the doubt?” Thomas repeated, sounding just as shocked as Phil felt. After all they’d seen, could she really expect that of them?

 

The woman came to a small, glassed-in room with a table and four chairs at its centre. Opening the door, she ushered them inside. Phil realised that, at some point, everything had been flipped around. The three of them had come here on their own terms, wanting answers. Now, it seemed, they were somehow on WICKED’s terms yet again. Phil thought back to the time Minho had been attacked by the Griever, and remembered how, that night, he’d realised that his freedom was nothing more than an illusion, shattered at the slightest touch.

 

“We didn’t come for a nice sit-down.” Thomas sounded angry. “We don’t want lies. We want actual answers. Please.”

 

“You killed someone,” Teresa added in a much calmer voice. “We didn’t sign up for this. We didn’t sign up for you killing our friends. Are we next?”

 

Surprisingly, Dr Paige didn’t look angry, or guilty, or even embarrassed. Instead, she seemed… sad. Distressed.

 

“Are you finished?” She sounded tired. “Can I please talk now? You’re sick of lies and half-truths? So am I. But you came here for answers, and all you’re doing is making accusations. That has to stop if you want me to talk.”

 

“Then talk.” Although Phil was doing his best to keep level-headed, he was finding it hard.

 

Dr Paige gave a slow nod of acknowledgement. “Thank you. Now, here’s the truth. We mutated a version of the Flare virus that can take hold in the immune in… interesting ways. Ways that will help us understand the main virus better. That altered version is what the Griever infected George with, and it’s also what the serum is for, to stop its effects. Sadly, the serum hasn’t been perfected yet, and you saw the… unfortunate result.”

 

She paused for a moment, eyeing the three of them for a reaction. None of them said anything.

 

Dr Paige folded her arms. “We’ll keep working on it. We didn’t mean for George to die - that’s the honest truth. We’ll correct the serum.” She paused, taking a breath before continuing. “But I can tell you this: we measured some very significant results in the hours after he was stung - results that we need and will continue to need. Not just from George, but from everyone who saw what happened and reacted to it.” She stood up, then put her hands on the table and leaned towards them. “And that’s what matters.”

 

Walking towards the door, she opened it, then looked back at them. “I’ve grown to care about the three of you. Like my own children. I swear to you that nothing on this earth could be more true.” She paused, on the verge of choking up. “And I’ll do anything -  _ anything _ \- to make sure that you have a world to return to someday.”

 

She looked down, a shimmering tear perilously close to dripping from her eye, then stepped out and closed the door.


	36. 230.12.17, 11:31PM

Months passed, and not a day went by when Phil didn’t think of George, or of Minho, or of all the other people WICKED had hurt - more than that, destroyed. These people’s lives were never going to be the same - or, in George’s case, they were simply never going to  _ be _ . The years ahead of so many innocent children had been stolen when most of them were just four or five years old, barely old enough to understand what was happening to them, and replaced with cruel tests, experiments, torture, death.

 

For a long time after George’s death, the Glade was different. Phil wasn’t sure things would ever go back to normal there. The technical parts, the physical aspects, had never changed. The walls still shifted every night. The false sky was still their, sun shining in the day, stars twinkling in the night. One person still came up in the Box every month. But a sombre mood hung over the Glade, a dark, thick blanket that, even nine months later, had barely begun to lift. George’s absence was felt every single day. Phil could only imagine how hard it must be for them all. If he had felt the way he did watching it through a screen, how would the Gladers have felt being right there?

 

Phil knew that disobeying WICKED was an awful, awful idea. He’d repeatedly refused to do what they said once, when was even younger than Chuck, and WICKED had punished him by putting him through unimaginable pain. If that had happened years in the past, who was to say that WICKED didn’t now have some newer, more painful technology to use on him - and possibly his friends - if the same thing happened again?

 

All the same, though, what happened to George added yet another layer to his hatred for WICKED. He understood that they were trying to find a cure for the Flare, but surely they were going about it all wrong. Phil was sure that they didn’t need to treat people like prisoners, hurt them, torture them, put them through intense trauma,  _ kill _ them, to get what they wanted. They didn’t need to be so mercilessly twisted.

 

Phil tried his best to ignore his feelings, though, telling himself that they’d only get him into trouble, pushing them down. He did his best to obey, to do what they told him, and not step too far out of line. It was for the best, he told himself. He wouldn’t gain anything by making how he felt heard. Letting his emotions loose wouldn’t bring his friends back.

 

He just about managed to keep this thought in his head until one night, around nine months after George’s death. Thomas woke him and Teresa up, speaking in their minds, and Phil could sense that he had a lot to say.

 

_ Guys, I found something huge. Really huge. You’re not going to believe this. _

 

_ What happened? What is it? _ Phil was awake in an instant, firing questions at his friend.

 

_ Is everything okay?  _ Teresa asked.

 

Thomas paused for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. Then, he started talking.

 

_ I found a research tablet, and because WICKED have been very careful about keeping us in the dark with some things, I decided to have a look. Yeah, I know it was wrong, but I’m sick of them treating us like unimportant little kids, you know? So I went onto the research, and for a long time I didn’t find anything. But then… _ Thomas paused, and somehow Phil knew his friend was hesitant to tell them what he had to say.  _ Then I found a folder of deleted communications. There was all sorts of stuff in there.  _ Another moment of silence. _ After the flares, there were barely any resources, and even though the population had decreased dramatically, there were still a lot of people. The PFC were the ones in charge, and they didn’t have enough resources to go around. They needed a fast way of controlling the population, keeping the numbers manageable. So they created a virus. This virus, this man-made sickness… they created it, and they released it into what was left of the world. On purpose. _

 

Thomas was silent for a moment, and Phil half-hoped he wouldn’t continue. He refused to let himself draw conclusions from what Thomas had just said. It couldn’t be true.

 

Thomas’ next words condemned Phil, gave him an awful, awful knowledge that he would do anything to forget.

 

_ Guys, they started the Flare. _

 

For a long, drawn-out moment, Phil said nothing. Neither did Teresa. Out of all the things he’d been expecting Thomas to say, the information he’d just given them was not one of them, not by a long shot. Phil took a moment to process what he’d just been told. He was shocked, angry, devastated. The Post-Flares Coalition had created the Flare, and released it on innocent people, only to realise setting a deadly virus loose might have been a bad idea, then formed WICKED and destroyed the lives of so many, all to find a solution to a problem they had created.

 

_ That’s…. That’s… I don’t know. That’s messed up. _ Phil couldn’t think of what to say.

 

_ It’s definitely messed up, _ Thomas agreed.  _ They thought the virus would only kill a certain percentage of the population - make it more manageable. They had no idea it would mutate and become this monstrous thing that’s basically wiped us out. I just can’t believe all this. Can’t believe it. _

 

_ The Flare has killed so many people,  _ Phil thought angrily.  _ So many lives have been torn apart because of this awful disease! I thought WICKED were trying to help the world, but they’re just cleaning up their own mess. _

 

_ The worst part, _ Thomas added,  _ is that there are several direct ties to WICKED. Remember John Michael? That guy we saw at the Crank pits? _ Phil remembered; he didn’t think he’d ever forget. _ He was the one who ordered the virus released! _

 

_ The past is the past. _ Teresa’s words stopped them both cold.

 

_ At least they’re trying to fix what they screwed up, _ she continued.  _ I mean, there’s nothing we can do about that now. _

 

_ Teresa… _ Phil was lost for words. She couldn’t really be so indifferent, could she?

 

_ Did you… did you already know this stuff?  _ Thomas asked hesitantly.

 

_ I’d heard rumours. _

 

_ And you never thought to tell us? _ Phil was stunned. How could Teresa have kept something like that from them? They were friends. People who trusted each other, who talked to each other.

 

_ I just don’t see the point. Yes, we have reason to hate these people. But how is dwelling on the past going to help anybody? The solution is what matters. _

 

_ Didn’t you learn anything from our puzzle lessons with Ms Denton? _ Thomas asked, sounded betrayed.  _ To know a solution, you have to know the problem through and through. This is a problem. _

 

Teresa’s response was emotionless.  _ Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m really tired. Can we talk about it tomorrow? _

 

She was gone before either of them could respond.

 

\---------------

 

The next day, Teresa refused to talk about it, emphasising that she’d rather focus on the future than the past. Dr Paige also blew it off, saying that those decisions were before her time. It was almost as if they were both determined to forget.

 

But Phil and Thomas couldn’t forget. Together, in their minds, they made a vow to never forget that WICKED was trying to fix a problem their predecessors had created in the first place. They would always remember what WICKED really was.

 

They would never, never forget.


	37. 231.5.4, 10:14PM

Winter came in spurts that year, like old engines being restarted after years of sitting in the maintenance heap.But it finally settled in, lasting long past what should have been the onset of spring.

 

Phil didn’t venture outside very often, but whenever he did, it felt like an entirely different world. It seemed that WICKED had finally decided he was old enough for their tight constraints to be loosened a little. He still wasn’t permitted to go outside without special permission and at least two armed guards by his side. However, when he did go out, he saw that ice, cold and snow had returned to the scorched world with a vengeance, as though making up for all the heat that the world had endured.

 

The WICKED climatologist had said that weather patterns were slowly resuming their cycles on Earth, but that in the places farthest north and south of the equator, the seasons were far more unpredictable and extreme than they’d been before the sun flares. He described the world’s climate as a pendulum that now swung faster and farther in both directions.

 

Phil enjoyed it when he could, enjoyed the feel of snow on his face, the tingle of icy cold on his nose and fingertips. It was a reminder that, even after a tragedy and disease that wiped out the majority of the Earth’s population, the world could, given time, still heal. It felt like winning, like spitting in the sun flares’ face and saying,  _ I’m still here. I’m alive after the flares, and I’m cold. So go suck it. _

 

One night in early May - winter still refusing to loosen its grip - Phil took a walk outside with Thomas, Teresa and Chuck, two guards right behind them, weapons out. Despite the change of scenery, Phil was in a bad mood, and one glance at Thomas told him his friend felt the same way, presumably for the same reason.

 

Over time, Phil had come to the realisation that WICKED had changed him. He thought of the past ten years, of the six-year-old who’d believed in saving the world. He thought of the eight-year-old who refused to be treated badly by WICKED, and in return had received unimaginable pain. He thought of the nine-year-old who met a brown-haired boy named Dan who opened up an entirely different world, who only wanted freedom and friendship and was sent to the Crank pits because of it. He thought of the eleven-year-old who had watched one of his closest friends tortured and almost killed for not wanting to be treated like a prisoner; he thought, heart aching, of the fourteen-year-old who had watched, helpless, as his friends were stolen away from him and put into an experiment, their memories erased. They didn’t even know his name anymore. He thought of the fifteen-year-old who had watched a boy die before his eyes, who found out that the organisation dedicated to curing the Flare were the ones who caused it in the first place. There was no denying that WICKED had gradually stolen the innocent six-year old away, along with his faith in the world. He’d become hardened, worn down by all he’d encountered. Though he was still young, he’d seen enough people hurt, endured enough pain to last ten lifetimes. WICKED had hurt him to the point where he barely recognised himself. They had stolen his warm heart and replaced it with one of cold stone.

 

Teresa shivered and rubbed her arms through her coat. “Are we sure this is planet Earth? WICKED didn’t throw us through a Flat Trans, put us on an ice planet?”

 

“That’d be cool,” Chuck replied. “Ice aliens. I wonder if your tongue sticks to their skin when you lick them. You know, like a flagpole.”

 

Thomas tousled the boy’s curly hair. “Yeah, we know, Chuck. You don’t always have to explain your jokes to us. Sometimes they’re actually funny. Like that one. It was funny. I’m laughing so hard it hurts on the inside.”

 

“Me too,” Phil added. “I’ve got a stitch from laughing so hard. On the inside.”

 

Chuck oinked like a pig, then giggled. He often reacted to things like that. It only made him more likable.

 

“Might want to bring it down a notch,” Teresa laughed. “We don’t want to wake the Cranks down in the pits now, do we?”

 

“I never got to see them,” Chuck replied, faking sadness. At least, Phil hoped he was faking.

 

They rounded a corner of the complex and stopped, a spectacular view having opened up in front of them. The lights on the outside of the WICKED building were bright enough to illuminate the surrounding forest, the pine trees dusted with snow glowing in the reflection. Specks of snowflakes lit up the sky, the crashing of waves below the cliffs more distant than ever. It was so perfect that Phil felt as if they were standing inside some sort of man-made set, the chilly breeze coming from giant fans.

 

A fake world, just like the Maze.

 

“Man, it’s so pretty,” Teresa whispered.

 

Phil expected a joke to pop out of Chuck, but the young boy was just as caught up in the wonders of their surroundings. “Our world isn’t so bad.” His voice was wistful. “Once WICKED figures out how to make everyone well again, life’ll be pretty good, don’t you think?”

 

Phil didn’t think so. He knew about the innumerable Cranks populating the desolate planet, and about all the destruction the flares and the virus had caused. The damage that had been done was in no way easily reversible; it was far too widespread, far too immense. Phil didn’t know if the world could ever be okay again. But he nodded.

 

“I think so, Chuck.”

 

“Over there.” Teresa spoke suddenly, her tone urgent. Phil followed her sightline to a group of trees about a hundred feet away.

 

A figure had stumbled out of the woods and fallen. Whoever it was got back up, brushing off the snow before starting to walk straight towards them. The guards quickly put themselves in front of the children, raising their weapons.

 

“We’d better get back,” one of them instructed.

 

“It’s a Crank, isn’t it?” Chuck asked. He said it calmly, bravely, making Phil burst with pride. He felt as though Chuck was his little brother, his little brother who’d gone from sobbing out of fear of the future to being brave in the face of a Crank.

 

“Bingo, little man,” the other guard replied. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. Let’s get inside.”

 

Phil was about to turn around and walk away with the guards - he didn’t particularly fancy the idea of being attacked by a Crank. He glanced back at the figure one more time, and something odd struck him, something that stopped Phil in his tracks. Squinting against the bright lights, he studied the figure lurching through the snow. There was no doubt.

 

“Hold on a second,” he said. “That’s not… I mean… that’s _ Randall _ .”

 

After a moment’s pause, the first guard lowered her gun. “I’ll be damned. It is him.”

 

“What’s he doing out here?” Thomas whispered.

 

“What should we do?” Chuck asked, way too loudly. Thomas shushed him, but it was too late. Randall stopped, his head snapping up. He saw them, and for a long moment no one moved.

 

Then Randall broke into action, struggling to get through the snow to them.

 

“Sorry,” Chuck muttered.

 

“Let’s get back,” The guard enjoined, more urgently this time. “We need to tell Ramirez about this.”

 

Turning their backs on Randall, the group jogged briskly towards the closest entrance to the looming complex. They were right in front of it when Randall shouted at them from behind.

 

“Stop! Marion! Moureu! I just need to say something!” Upon hearing their names, the guards turned around, once again placing themselves in front of Phil, Thomas, Teresa and Chuck, raising their weapons.

 

Randall stepped out of the snowy grounds and stumbled out onto the pavement, about twenty feet away from them. He looked awful - eyes bloodshot, nose bleeding, cheeks hollow and gaunt. The skin at the right edge of his brow had split open, a streak of red painting the side of his face. Phil stared at the man. What had happened to him? What could he possibly be doing outside?

 

“Speak fast, then, Randall,” the woman said. “You don’t look well. We need to get you some help.”

 

“Can’t hide it anymore, can I?” Randall was now bent over, leaning on his knees. “It’s the darndest thing!” He lurched upright, swaying left, then right, before getting his balance. “The darndest thing, trying to hid the Flare from your bosses.”

 

Unaware he was doing so, Phil took a step back. The night seemed to become still, the snow frozen in midair, no longer swirling, dancing, falling.

 

“Alright, we’re done here.” The female guard was the first to speak. “Open the door, Moureu. Get them inside and find a doctor. Quick.”

 

“You think you’re special?” Randall yelled. “You really think they’re not going to do the same thing to you they’re going to do to them all?”

 

Moureu punched in the security code. There was a loud beep, then the colour on the display changed from red to green. With a loud click that rang through the winter night, the door popped open. The guard pulled it wide and stepped back.

 

Thomas practically shoved Chuck through the entrance, then grabbed Phil’s arm with his left hand and Teresa’s arm with his right, pulling them inside. Clearly Thomas was no more eager to be outside with Randall than Phil was.

 

Randall, meanwhile, was still shouting behind them. “You hear what I said? You’re running from the wrong guy,” the sick man called. “I’m not the one you should be scared about. You hear me?”

 

The guard pulled the door closed, cutting off Randall’s ramblings. Through the safety window, Phil watched the man turn around and stumble back towards the forest.

 

\---------------

 

“You can sleep in my room tonight,” Thomas told Chuck. The group stood in the hallway outside his door. “I don’t care if we get in trouble.”

 

Teresa, who had gone into her room to use the bathroom, had just come back out to join them. She had a troubled look on her face; Phil assumed it was due to their encounter with Randall.

 

Thomas look at her, concerned. “You okay, Teresa? You want to sleep in here too?”

 

“Actually…”

 

“What’s wrong?” Phil asked.

 

Teresa flicked her eyes over to Chuck, who was lost in his thoughts. She spoke in Phil and Thomas’ minds.  _ Let’s get him to sleep in your room, Thomas. Then the three of us need to go. Now. _

 

_ Wait, what? _ Thomas asked.  _ Go where? _

 

_ Things are worse than you think, _ she answered.  _ Look… just get him to sleep, tell him bedtime stories for all I care. Whatever it takes. Tap on my door when you’re sure he’s out. Phil and I will be waiting there? _

 

_ What? _ Phil was taken aback by her sudden statement, but even more so by her tone.  _ What’s wrong? _ Thomas echoed his question without saying anything, a silent nod of agreement.

  
  


“You know what?” She spoke aloud, ignoring their questions. Gently, she brushed a strand of hair out of Chuck’s face, and he looked up at her, his eyes filled with the weight of what he’d just seen. “I’m tired. Why don’t you two go have your sleepover and I’ll see you in the morning. I think Phil’s going to head back to his room too. Right, Phil?”

 

Put on the spot, Phil nodded, hoping it was convincing. He still had no idea what was going on.

 

“Don’t worry,” Teresa reassured, leaning over to be closer to Chuck’s height. “Seriously. Randall is sick and they’ll take care of him. We’re immune, remember?” She smiled warmly at the boy, and for a second, Phil almost believed her reassurances were genuine.

 

“Goodnight,” Thomas said. “Come on, Chuck.”

 

“Goodnight,” Teresa replied.

 

“Night, guys.” Phil watched as Thomas and Chuck went into Thomas’ room, then turned to Teresa once the door was closed. “What’s going on?” He spoke quietly, in case Chuck heard.

 

“You’ll see.” She led him into her bedroom, closing the door behind them. “Let’s wait for Thomas, though. It’s better if you both find out at the same time."


	38. 231.5.4, 11:41PM

Teresa was at the door in an instant, opening it before Thomas had even tapped twice.

 

“Come in,” she whispered urgently.

 

Thomas stepped inside and she closed the door. “What’s up?” He looked first at Teresa, then at Phil.

 

Teresa walked over to her bedside table, picking up a piece of paper and holding it up for them to see. A few words were scribbled on it in pencil:

 

_ Come see me ASAP. Dr Paige. _

 

Phil looked at Teresa. “Seriously, Teresa, what’s going on?”

 

“This note was slipped under my door while we were outside.” She paused. “I’m pretty sure Dr Paige knows what happened out there tonight. It has to be related to Randall somehow.”

 

Somehow, Phil know that something was terribly wrong. A horrible fear was clawing its way up his chest, and he felt an overwhelming uncertainty.

 

“What do we do?” Thomas asked.

 

“Let’s just go find Dr Paige. She’s the smartest person I’ve even met. If she wants to talk to us, then we need to go,” Teresa reasoned.

 

She gave them both a nod of encouragement, then opened the door and left the room. Phil followed her.

 

\---------------

 

Phil knocked softly on Dr Paige’s door. The last thing they wanted to do was wake up any of the other doctors or Psychs along the same hall. When she didn’t answer, he knocked a little harder. Finally he heard a soft voice from the other side.

 

“Who is it?”

 

“Phil. Thomas. Teresa,” Phil answered, a thought suddenly striking him. Surely she would know they were coming? What if the note hadn’t actually been from her? “We got your message?”

 

The door opened a crack, revealing Dr Paige, who looked different than she had all the times Phil had seen her. Her hair was down and tangled from sleep, and her face was clean of makeup. She opened the door wider and nodded for them to enter.

 

“I’m glad you came.”

 

Dr Paige sat at her desk, the three teenagers on the bed, waiting for her to speak. Phil found himself thinking of Newt - not immune. Fully susceptible to the Flare. There were only two futures for Newt and all the people like him: either they found a way to treat the sickness - the sickness WICKED’s predecessors had created - or one day he went insane, ending up like Randall. Like the Cranks in the Crank pits.

 

Dr Paige finally spoke. While she seemed as calm and contained as ever, her eyes said something different. She was scared.

 

“I’ve been dreading this day for months, wishing we could last just a little while longer,” she began.

 

She stood up, standing quietly for a moment, thinking, then turned to look at them.

 

“There’s a reason I’ve fought for you and sought your help so many times. You are part of this organisation. You’ve grown up here, as one of us, and I know we have the same goals. I know that I can trust you to do anything to help us achieve our mission. And now I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

 

The three of them exchanged glances. Even without using telepathy, they knew they were all thinking the same thing.

 

They all nodded.

 

The doctor flashed them a warm smile. “Yes, I thought so. Okay, well, we have no choice now. Once we start this, there’s absolutely no going back.” She took a second to look each of them in the eye. “So I need to ask you three: are you ready?”

 

Thomas stood. Phil stood. Teresa stood. They nodded again.

 

“Okay then,” Dr Paige continued. “I’ve been suspicious for a while now that certain WICKED officers have been hiding information from us that could potentially undermine everything we’re going here. Some of our top people haven’t even shown their faces in weeks. It’s time to initiate the protocol.”

 

She paused before she spoke again, taking a breath. “It’s time for the Purge."


	39. 231.5.5, 12:33AM

Dr Paige marched down the hall, confident step after confident step, her whole demeanour different from anything Phil had ever seen. It was as if she’d accepted some woolly mantle of responsibility and wore it high on her shoulders. He found himself believing she could fix this situation.

 

“We have to get everything done in the next twenty-four hours,” she stated quietly over her shoulder. “I have plenty of help on my end, and Aris and Rachel will help you on yours.”

 

“Where are we going?” Teresa asked. “What’s the Purge?”

 

Stopping at the lift, Dr Paige pressed the call button, stepping in when the car arrived, speaking as the door closed. “First things first. At the end of every day WICKED requires a mandatory blood test of its members. We’ve always understood the importance of monitoring for contamination.” She entered the floor number and the lift started moving. “But over the last several months, I’ve noticed some strange activity - there’s been an undercurrent of suspicion - and then I discovered some of our personal health data has been breached. Chancellor Anderson finally decided that all results would have to go through him before being disseminated to the medical staff. Well, I receive a general report every night, and not one person has tested positive. But… that’s according to the reports I’m seeing through the chancellor.”

 

The lift came to a stop, the familiar chime dinged, and the doors opened. Phil, Thomas and Teresa followed Dr Paige out of the lift and down yet another hallway.

 

“But I started noticing symptoms recently,” she continued. “Even the chancellor himself is showing signs of infection. I’m almost certain now that our beloved leader has been fudging the reports. I saw Randall on the security feeds tonight. And if Randall is sick… well, it’s impossible he’s the only one.”

 

Dr Paige stopped in front of a door.

 

“But why haven’t we noticed anything?” Teresa asked. “I mean, besides Randall, we haven’t seen any signs people are sick.”

 

Dr Paige nodded, as if she’d anticipated the question. “It may be early for some. Others further along the road may be in hiding somewhere. Makes me wonder if Randall got out from wherever that is. What happened tonight with him made me realise how serious our situation has become. If the results are being faked like I think, I need to initiate the safety protocol to ensure we remain healthy and we can continue our work. I have to take charge. Tonight.”

 

Phil couldn’t believe how quickly the situation was escalating.

 

The doctor had never looked so grave, so determined. “First we have to get every last one of those results from the blood tests - from the original results, not the summary report. We’ll find out who’s sick and who isn’t. And then we’ll deal with things.”

 

“How do we get into his office?” Thomas asked. “Aren’t the security feeds following us?”

 

She smiled, a brief break in the clouds. “Which question should I answer first?”

 

“The second one.” Teresa made his decision for him. “Security.”

 

Dr Paige nodded. “Let’s just say there are many people who owe me favours here. That and everyone is so scared about getting sick, they’re depending on his to guarantee their health. Ramirez is terrified of succumbing to it, and he think’s I’m best suited to make sure the cure actually happens. Your father,” she addressed Phil, “has agreed. The sad truth is that Chancellor Anderson’s time leading WICKED has to come to an end.”

 

Phil didn’t know what to think of that. “And… this office? How do we get in without Anderson knowing about it?”

 

At some point, Dr Paige’s smile had completely vanished. “Oh, he’ll know about it. He’s in there right now. Shall we go in?” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a surgical mask, slipping it onto her face. “I guess you guys don’t need one of these, eh?” Her eyes showed the smile had returned.

 

Dr Paige opened the unlocked door and stepped inside the chancellor’s office.

 

\---------------

 

Another room was attached to the back of his office, a private space to relax or hold more intimate meetings. They found Anderson in there, asleep, half of his body draped on a sofa, the other half hanging precariously close to the floor.

 

“How did you know?” Teresa whispered, so quietly Phil could barely hear her.

 

The doctor motioned for them to go back into the main office, and then she gently closed the door to the private room where the chancellor slept.

 

“You can’t imagine the precautions I’ve taken to avoid catching the Flare,” the woman said, her words muffled through her mask. “Extreme. I wear this mask almost twenty-four-seven now, and always when I’m in a confined space like this with others who are potentially infected. I wash my hands and face every half hour. I prepare my own food…” She looked down at her hands. “I have to take some risks, of course. Every day. I could hardly call myself a doctor if I didn’t.”

 

“But what about… this?” Teresa asked, pointing over her shoulder in the direction of Anderson’s private room.

 

“He’s one of the reason’s I’m so cautious. I’ve come here to visit him once a week or so for months. We’d developed a… friendship… even before all this started. We’ve talked for hours upon hours about our former lives, WICKED, the blueprint’s progress. He stopped bothering to lock the door over a month ago. But my point is, over that time he’s changed.”

 

“Who else do you think might have it?” Phil asked.

 

“We’re about to find out - if he hasn’t destroyed the original test results.” She went to the chancellor’s desk - scattered with with framed photos of people Phil assumed must be the chancellor’s loved ones - and opened up his display screen. “For all his security fears, he hasn’t been very original with passwords.” She smiled at that, then got to work, using the keyboard as well as the touch functions on the screen itself. A blue glow filled the room with a ghostly pall.

 

“Shouldn’t take too long…” she mumbled absently.

 

Dr Paige manoeuvred her way through several layers of security on the chancellor’s computer until she finally got to a spreadsheet listing the full roster of WICKED employees in the complex, from cafeteria workers to doctors and Psychs to the test subjects themselves. She scrolled through a few records until she got to a tab for administration; when she clicked on it, an image of Chancellor Anderson’s face flashed onto the screen. The man’s beaming smiling couldn’t have been more incongruous with the situation at hand. Dr Paige dived deeper into the data and found the test results from the end of the day before. Although he’d been preparing himself for the information he knew was inevitable, the verification flashing before his eyes send a chill to every corner of Phil’s body.

 

Chancellor Kevin Anderson had the Flare.

 

And so, it turned out, did a few others at WICKED.


	40. 231.5.5, 3:42AM

Nineteen of the one hundred and thirty-one members of staff in the WICKED complex turned out to be infected. All high-ranking officials, mostly in Anderson’s circle. No wonder they’d conspired to keep it from everyone else.

 

Dr Paige had whisked Phil, Thomas and Teresa back to her room and locked them inside, explaining that she now had to fully initiate the Purge protocol and make sure everything was in motion. That she’d return soon. Two hours later she came back, and she had Aris and Rachel with her. As they came in from the hallway, Dr Paige dropped four loaded backpacks onto the floor.

 

“What are those for?” Teresa asked.

 

“I’ll explain everything,” the doctor answered. “I’m going to need the five of you desperately today.”

 

Phil gave Aris and Rachel a friendly nod, which was returned. Aris seemed to have grown older, lines crossing his face like little marks of worry. Rachel had cut her hair even shorter, and there was a sadness in her dark eyes. She stood confidently, though, and something abt the two of them encouraged Phil.

 

Dr Paige showed no signs of wearing down. She’d taken complete charge.

 

“This is what my people have figured out,” she said. “Anderson has all the infected hidden away in Sector D, and judging from their symptoms, a few of them appear to be pretty far along. It explains why we haven’t seen them around lately. I’ve locked down that entire wing of the complex.

 

“I’ve checked and rechecked the original medical tests from yesterday. Other than Anderson, who’s still in his office, and Randall, somewhere out in the forest, it seems that we have all the infected contained. Everyone outside of Sector D is clean.”

 

She paused for a couple of deep breaths. “But we can’t waste a single second. We need to clear those people out, and we need to do it fast. I have some brave guards who are willing to risk infection, but I just can’t bring myself to lose another life to this disease. Which is where you come in.”

 

She stopped speaking, letting her words hang in the air, and the realisation of what she was saying suddenly hit Phil like a lightning bolt.

 

“You mean…”

 

She nodded, her expression showing how hard it was to say what came next. “You’re all immune, and you’re the oldest and strongest of those not in the Maze. We’re dealing with people who are very sick and weak - more important, though, is that most of them are asleep, which is why we have to act right now. These backpacks have syringes filled with a solution that’s been prepared for this task - all it takes is a quick plunge into their necks and the job is done. You should be able to do it with no problems.”

 

Phil took a deep breath in. The awful reality of what they were about to do sank in.

 

Aris finally said the words no one else could. “So… we’re just going to kill them?”

 

“They’ll die anyway,” Teresa said immediately, her cold tone a shock to Phil. He wondered if this was some attempt to relieve her of guilt or if she’d really grown such a hard shell around herself for protection.

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Thomas interjected, standing up - at some point, he’d sat on the floor.. “We have to think this through.”    
  
“No, Tom,” Teresa snapped. “It’s  _ be tough now _ or everyone dies later.”    
  
Thomas slumped back to the floor, looking at Teresa. For a moment, neither of them said anything.    
  
“I’m sorry,” she apologised, the fierceness melting away. “I’m sorry, Tom. Really. I just... I know this whole thing is awful, but it’ll be less awful if we just accept it and get it done.”    
  


“She’s right,” Dr. Paige added. “The four of you will be adults soon. You can handle this. We know exactly where the infected are - you just need to go from room to room and inject them.” She gestured toward the backpacks. “We’ve packed guns, and we have Launchers for you as well. Just in case. I need to stress that. Just in case. I think you’ll be able to do this to them as they sleep. And I’ll have guards posted, despite the risk of infection, if things go south.”    
  
The room was silent for a long time. At least Dr Paige was allowing them a moment to think it through.    
  
“Count me in,” Teresa finally broke the silence.    
  
“Me too,” Aris added.

 

“The end justifies the means,” Rachel said somewhat bitterly. “It should be WICKED’s official logo. They should have a giant banner draped across the front entrance.  _ The ends justify the  _ __   
__ means. But I’m in.”    
  
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Aris asked. “If you could save a billion people by killing a million people, shouldn’t you do it? You know, hypothetically speaking? If you really had that choice and said no, then aren’t you actually killing a billion people? I’d rather kill a million than a billion.”    
  
Phil looked at Aris. How could he talk about death, about murder so casually? Phil thought about if for a moment, considering whether or not he wanted to go through with this, and the more he thought, the more he realised that once again, he had no choice. He didn’t want to do it. Not at all. Phil could think of a million things he’d rather do than take part in the Purge. But there was no way out. He couldn’t turn back now.

 

“I’m in.” He said it quietly, staring at the floor, voice full of reluctance. But he said it.

 

Looking up, he saw that Thomas was staring at him, looking completely and utterly betrayed. His friend hadn’t agreed to the Purge yet.

 

“I’m sorry, Thomas. You know I wouldn’t do this if there was any other choice. I hate this. I hate the idea of killing people. But if we don’t do this, aren’t we eliminating the possibility of a cure. You know we can’t turn back. Not now. Not after all we’ve been through. Come on, Thomas. I hate to say this, but I need you with me on this. With  _ us _ . Please.”

 

Thomas looked down at the ground, and Phil knew he was thinking over what he’d just said. It wasn’t an easy decision to make.

 

Thomas looked up again, sighing. His eyes were filled with a reluctant determination.

 

“This sucks.”


	41. 231.5.5, 4:15AM

After the four of them had agreed to the mission, Dr Paige went to get a few security guards to give them instruction on the syringes and weapons and to go over the best plan. Phil could tell Thomas and Teresa were talking telepathically, but he stayed out of it, not in the mood for conversation.

 

He had a terrible feeling about this. He’d rather be anywhere else on Earth than here. Hell, he’d fling himself to a Griever if it meant he didn’t have to do this. He never signed up to _ kill _ anyone!

 

A few minutes later, the door opened, and several uniformed guards came in, followed by Dr Paige.

 

“Let’s get you prepped,” she said. “Time is running out.”

 

\--------------------

 

Phil’s backpack was heavy. He and his friends had full packs carrying everything they would need. Two guns each, replacement cartridges for the Launchers they had strapped across their shoulders, and enough syringes to put down the entirety of WICKED, let alone nineteen people. Better to have too much than not enough, Dr Paige had said.   
  
They ran through the hallways of the complex to their first target - Chancellor Anderson. A man with whom Phil had never had much of a problem. A man who had seemed nice enough, when it came down to it. A man who was now utterly insane. They had to take care of him first before heading down to Sector D.    
  
They’d been running for a good five minutes when Aris halted and held a hand up. Teresa almost ran him over before she stopped.    
  
“Did you hear that?” Aris whispered.

 

Thomas listened, trying to pick out    
something unusual over the hum of the ventila-    
tion system and the sound of their heavy breaths    
from running.    
  
“Nope,” Thomas answered. Phil shook his head.   
  
“Just keep listening,” Aris responded, his gaze shifting to the ceiling, as if what he’d heard had come from above. “There.”    
  
A low wail, like a child crying. Now that he heard it, Phil couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before. High-pitched, mournful, it echoed along the corridor, making it impossible to tell what direction it came from.   
  
“Maybe it’s coming through the vents from Sector D,” Rachel suggested.    
  
The pitiful noise ceased.    
  
“Or it could be one of the kids,” Thomas said. “Dr. Paige has them all hiding somewhere.”    
  
Teresa spoke up. “We need to get Anderson resolved before we can think about anything else. Let’s go.”

 

The five of them set off running again.

 

\--------------------

 

The door to Anderson’s office was closed, not locked. Teresa stepped forward and opened it.    
Phil held his breath, half expecting the man to jump out at them from a dark corner, like a zombie.    
  
Nothing but silence and darkness. And a smell. A horrible smell.    
  
Teresa nudged the door wider and stepped inside, Launcher held out in front of her, ready to    
fire. Aris went next, then Rachel, the Phil, Thomas behind him. The blue glow of the workstation still shone - nothing had changed since they’d last been there. Except for the putrid stink of body odor and urine, even feces. The smell assaulted Phil and he gagged, falling to one knee, as his throat closed. He tried to pull himself together.    
  
_ You okay? _ Teresa asked in his mind.    
  
_ I’m fine. Is he in there? _ He nodded toward the back room.    
  
_ Let’s go see. _

 

Aris was ahead of them, though, lightly kicking the door open. Another wave of wretched stink came wafting out of the darkness, causing Phil to wonder what had happened to the place in the relatively short time they’d been gone. Getting back to his feet, he moved to stand behind Aris and Teresa. Thomas and Rachel joined him, Rachel holding her nose.

 

“Is he dead?” she asked.    
  


“No,” came a rasp of a voice. Anderson. He barely sounded human. “No. Not dead. Not your lucky day.” He let out a series of wet, wracking coughs.    
  
“Oh, man,” Thomas said. “Get a light on in this place.”    
  
“It might hurt his eyes.” This from Aris, whose fingers went to the panel anyway. Lights blazed, as bright as noon.    
  
Anderson screamed, clawing at his eyes. He writhed on the floor in front of the couch, which looked like he’d been lying on it for months. “Turn it off! Turn it off!”    
  
Aris dimmed the lights, which Phil silently thanked him for. The sight before them was almost too much for him to bear. He stared at the man who had once been their leader. Blood covered his face and his clothes, and his hair was matted and greasy. He’d lost weight, his skin pale and sweaty. The man lay on his side, his mouth set in a permanent grimace, baring teeth that were rimmed in red. And then Phil saw why.

 

The man only had two fingers left. Bloody nubs remained where the others had once been.

 

“Oh, god.” Phil covered his face with the crook of one arm. “He didn’t. He didn’t.”

 

“He did,” replied Rachel, her voice cold.

 

Thomas turned away from the scene and went to the display screen on the former chancellor’s desk.

 

“Guys. Listen to what Anderson almost sent to everybody while we were gone.” Thomas began to read from the screen.

 

_ “I only have two fingers left. _

 

_ I wrote the lies of my farewell with two fingers. _

 

_ That is the truth. _

 

_ We are evil. _

 

_ They are kids. _

 

_ We are evil. _

 

_ We should stop, let the Munies have the world. _

 

_ We are evil. _

 

_ We can’t play God. _

 

_ We can’t do this to kids. _

 

_ You’re evil. I’m evil. _

 

_ My two fingers tell me so.  _

 

_ How can we lie to our replacements? _

 

_ We give them hope when there is none. _

 

_ Everyone will die. _

 

_ No matter what. _

 

_ Let nature win.” _

 

“He’s so messed up.” Teresa spoke quietly when Thomas had finished reading Anderson’s last words.

 

“I’d say it’s a little beyond that,” Phil replied.    
  
“My fingers,” Anderson moaned from the other room. “Why’d you eat my fingers?”

 

Every bone in Phil’s body went cold as he followed Thomas and Teresa to Anderson’s side again. The man had curled himself up into a ball and was rocking back and forth.    
  
“Only two left,” the man said, his words floating with delirium. “I hope the other eight were tasty. I always thought it’d be me that ate them. But no. It had to be you, didn’t it?”    
  
Phil shared a glance with each of the others. After all they’d seen, was this the saddest? To see a man who’d led this giant operation with such vigor turn into a snivelling lunatic?    
  
Anderson’s body contorted, seemingly every muscle twisting in on itself. He twitched for a few seconds, then relaxed. His wild glare slowly left the floor and followed the line of Thomas’s body from his feet to his thighs to his torso and finally met his gaze.    
  
“They’ll take your brain in the end,” Anderson said. “They’ll take it out, look at it for a few hours, then probably eat it. You should’ve run when you had the chance.” There was a sudden, disturbing clarity in the man’s eyes.

 

“What do we do?” Aris asked. Their former chancellor kept talking, but he’d shrunk back into a fetal position, his words lost in his moans of agony. He stared at the floor right in front of his face.    
  
“We have to put him out of his misery,” Teresa answered. “And then I think it’ll be easier for us to… take care of everyone else. But we need to get moving.”    
  
A month or two ago, Phil would have been shocked at her callousness. Even a few days ago. But not anymore. They needed to match the cold, hard situation by becoming cold and hard themselves. Whoever these people had been, they were only Cranks now.    
  
A sudden movement to Phil’s right caught his attention. Thomas had swung his backpack off his shoulders, setting it beside him. He knelt down right next to Anderson, and blood from the man’s injuries started to seep into the knees of his trousers.

 

Phil made no move to stop him. Neither did anyone else.

 

Phil watched as Thomas unzipped his pack, rummaged inside it, and pulled out one of the syringes filled with Dr. Paige’s concoction. He snapped off the protective tab of plastic on the end of the needle, then positioned it in his hand, his thumb lightly pressed against the button that controlled the electronic plunger.    
  
“Are we sure about this?” Rachel asked. “I mean... we’re sure?”    
  
“Yes,” Thomas replied, short and curt.    
  
Anderson rolled over onto his back, trembling now. His eyes widened as he stared at the ceiling, murmuring unintelligibly. Thomas leaned in closer, syringe out over the man’s head. There was no sign of awareness in Anderson’s expression, no sign of humanity left.

 

Teresa touched Thomas on the shoulder, and he looked back at her. Her eyes were brimming with tears, and she spoke inside Thomas’ mind. Phil heard every word.   
  


_Sorry. I’m with you on this. You can do it._   
  
He nodded, then turned to Anderson, still shaking ever so slightly on the ground, nothing more than simple shivering. Thomas brought the silver tip of the needle to the side of the former chancellor’s neck. He hesitated. Phil wanted to look away, to spare his eyes and memory from recording what was about to happen, but he stared at the scene before him.  
  
Anderson’s gaze shifted, his eyes falling on Thomas. He whispered something, a word. Repeated it, over and over, saliva foaming at the corners of his mouth. 

 

“Please, please, please, please, please, please...”    
  
Phil couldn’t tell if the man was encouraging Thomas or begging him to stop. As Phil watched, horrified, but unable to look away, Thomas slid the needle into the soft flesh of the man’s neck and pressed the button that controlled the plunger. A hiss sounded as the deadly fluid in the vial drained out of the syringe and into Anderson’s body.

 

They all watched in silence as the former leader of WICKED grew still, let out one last, long breath, and closed his eyes.


	42. 231.5.5, 7:13AM

There were eighteen left.    
  
Phil and his friends stood in the security room once governed by Ramirez and Randall. Dr Paige and a few of her new staff analyzed the rooms and hallways of Sector D.    
  
“Everyone is still in the same positions,” Dr Paige said, scanning the security feeds. “Maybe we make a goal for you to reach five of them, then come back here and regroup, assess whether anything has changed.”    
  
Phil absently watched the camera feeds coming from the maze while the others focused on Sector D. Near the Homestead, Alby and Newt were locked in an argument with Nick, who’d long ago separated himself from the others as the clear leader. Without sound, the tussle didn’t have any context. At least no punches had been thrown. Most of the other Gladers were asleep.    
  


“They have no idea what’s going on in here,” Phil remarked, a little surprised that he’d spoken aloud. “I guess that’s a good thing.”    
  
Teresa looked his way. She seemed ready to reproach him - they had slightly more pressing matters - but then she softened. “I know. For once, life is tougher out here than in there.”    
  
“I guess the tables have turned,” Rachel said.    
  


“Guys?” Dr. Paige cut in. She gestured toward the cameras focused on the WICKED complex itself. “The plan?”    
  
“Sorry,” Rachel murmured.    
  
Phil focused his attention back on the relevant feeds.    
  


A guard pointed at one in particular. “Room D-17. A rec room. A few of them are sleeping on the floor in there. That should be your first stop after entering the Sector.”    
  
“Maybe they’re dead,” Teresa added.    
  
Dr. Paige leaned closer to the screens, her lips moving as she counted. “And there’s our five. It’s a good plan. Go take care of them, then come back here and we’ll show you where to go next.”  _ Take care of them, _ Thomas thought. What a nice way to put  _ murder them _ .    
  
They grabbed their backpacks full of deadly weapons and headed out the door toward Sector D.    
  
After a guard let them through the locked-down entrance, Thomas and the others headed for the assigned room. They’d almost made it when movement in the hall ahead stopped them in their tracks. Aris had taken the lead and suddenly jumped back, pushing the others around the closest corner.    
  
“There’s a couple of people up there,” he whispered, his back to the wall, panting.    
  
“I saw them, too,” Teresa said. “Which means they probably saw us.”    
  
With perfect timing, a shout rang through the hall.

 

“Hey, you kids!” A man, his voice on the edge of hysterics. “Come here, my little subjects!”    
  
His words filled Phil with a feeling of such horror that it made him shiver. Sweat broke out on his arms and forehead, a flush of heat making him unbearably hot.    
  
“How many?” he asked.    
  
Aris peeked around the corner, then jerked back to face the others. “Two men. One’s crawling on the ground, the other’s walking, but he’s using the wall to hold him up. They’re getting really close. And, man, they look seriously messed up.”

 

The detailed report only made Phil feel worse. “Do we go back and regroup?”    
  
“No, we rush them,” Teresa said. “Why put it off? The five of us can take these two easily.”    
  
Rachel was nodding as she spoke, and one look at Aris showed he agreed as well.   
  
Thomas spoke up. “What do you mean by ‘messed up’?”    
  
“The crawling dude is totally naked,” Aris answered, “scratches all over his body. The one stumbling along the wall looks like he puked up about seven breakfasts all over his shirt. And his hair... I think he ripped some of it out. It’s nasty.”    
  


“You think they’re all like this?” Thomas asked, sounding as overwhelmed as Phil felt. “I didn’t know they were so near the Gone.” 

 

A terrible wail of anguish sounded down the hall, a long, mewling sound that ended in something close to giggles. They were getting closer.    
  
“You saw Anderson,” Teresa pointed out. “Those left have to be as bad as him or a couple of steps away from it.”    
  
Thomas nodded.

  
“Okay. What do we do?” Phil asked.   
  
Teresa swung her backpack off her shoulder just enough to unzip it and look inside. She pulled out a pistol, then two syringes. She handed one to Thomas, and one to Phil.    
  
“I’ll be the last resort,” she said, hefting the gun in her right hand, finger already on the trigger. “Aris and Rachel, you hit them first with Launcher grenades. Once they’re down, Thomas and Phil, you run up to them and inject the poison. I’ll be right beside you. If they make a move, I’ll take care of them.”    
  
Phil stared at her, equal parts impressed and terrified.   
  
“Okay,” he agreed, doing his best to let go of all his emotions.   
  
“Sounds good,” Aris replied. “You guys ready?”    
  
Thomas, death-tipped syringe gripped in his hand, nodded. Rachel held up her Launcher    
in answer. Teresa said, “Go.”    
  
Aris pushed off from the wall with a grunt and ran around the corner, yelling with adrenaline. Rachel went next, her weapon held ready, then Phil, then Thomas, then Teresa, her gun the last line of defense. The sound of the Launcher charging filled the air, followed by the burst of power as a grenade catapulted toward the man moving along the wall. Just as Alby had said, his hair had been ripped out in spots, leaving red, bloody welts.

 

The grenade hit him square in his chest, and he let out a howl as tiny tendrils of lightning danced across his body. He feel to the floor, spasming as the Launcher’s power tried to fry him from the inside out.   
  
“Phil, go!” Aris yelled as he stepped forward, already aiming for the other man in case Rachel missed.    
  
Phil ran toward the first victim, then slid along the tile floor, coming to a stop just a foot or so from the man’s head. He gripped the syringe, letting it hover just inches above the man’s face, waiting for the streaks of white powder to fade. He heard a second Launcher shot, then a third, followed by rapid thumps of contact. A cry similar to that of some primal beast pierced the air.    
  
Phil saw his chance below him, the charges of electricity dwindling. For a split second, he hesitated. Could he really do this to another person? Could he bring himself to kill?

 

No, not a person. A Crank. Hardening his resolve, he stabbed the needle of the syringe into the Crank’s neck and released the poison. He scrambled away, kicking at the floor with his feet until his back met the opposite wall, where he stood up. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he flopped over - the syringe bounced back and forth as if dancing on its needle, pivoting in the soft folds of the neck.

 

There were seventeen Cranks left in the complex.

 

“Thomas! Over here!” Rachel yelled. “Hurry!” She stood above the second man, who was still convulsing from her Launcher shot. His battered, purpling body was like a dark storm cloud, sending miniature bolts of lightning down to die in the floor tiles.    
  
Thomas ran to him, static and sparks filling the air as he fell to his knees. He knelt forward and plunged the second syringe into the man’s neck, releasing the vial of liquid death.    
  
Teresa was there, two hands tightly gripping her pistol, aiming down at the man’s head just in case. Rachel and Aris stood right behind her, struggling to catch their breath. Phil stood up from beside the Crank’s boy - he’d  _ killed _ someone - and went to stand with them.   
  
“I think that does it,” Thomas said. “We just killed two people without any of us getting a single scratch.”

 

“Cranks,” Teresa replied, finally letting herself relax as she dropped the gun to her side. “Not people, Cranks.”    
  


Thomas got to his feet. “I didn’t realise those were two different things.”    
  


She gave him a hard look.

 

“Room D-17,” Aris said between breaths. “Stick to the plan.”    
  


Teresa turned away from Thomas to lead the way.

 


	43. 231.5.5, 7:47AM

“D... seventeen...,” Aris scanned the rooms as they jogged past. He pointed. “Here it is!”   
  
Stepping up to the door, Phil placed his ear against the flat surface. He pressed in, hoping to hear nothing. He hoped they were either asleep or dead.   
  
“Anything?” Teresa asked.   
  
Phil shook his head. Then, “No, wait.” He pressed his ear to the door again. A low moaning sound was clearer. “Yeah - there’s at least one awake.”   
  
They prepared themselves much as they had for the encounter in the hallway. According to the cameras, five Cranks were on the other side of the door, immobile. Thomas squeezed three syringes in his hand, Phil held two, and Aris and Rachel both held their Launchers, fully charged and loaded behind. That left Teresa with the gun again; Phil had a feeling that this time, she’d be forced to use it.

 

When everyone was ready to go, Teresa used her free hand to push open the door. It swung open into a dimly lit room, the scents of body odor and rotten breath wafting out like a diseased wind.   
  
Phil scrunched up his face at the foul smell, fighting his gag reflex as he slipped inside, Thomas in front of him, Rachel, Aris, and Teresa behind, weapons ready. A quick sweep established the scene, and his rapidly thumping heart slowed. The room was a gathering spot, filled with chairs and couches, entertainment screens, tables for pool and Ping-Pong. The five people they’d spied earlier were congregated in the corner to his left. A man lay on a couch, arm dangling off the side, another man on the floor at his feet. Two women were sprawled side by side, also on the floor, at the foot of two chairs, their arms draped across each other as if to comfort. The last person, a man, sat in a chair, his head lolling back in sleep, great, booming snores erupting from his wide-open mouth.

 

Aris and Rachel quietly stepped up to the group, aiming their weapons. A long moment of silence passed; then that familiar electronic whine filled the air, immediately followed by a series of cracks as the Launchers fired in quick succession. Five distinct thumps meant that they’d hit their marks, and blue lightning lit up the air as the Cranks’   
bodies convulsed with electricity.   
  
“Now!” Aris instructed. “Here, I’ll help you.” He came up to, taking one of his syringes. Rachel did the same with Thomas. Teresa kept her gun trained on the five spasming figures as the four approached. Phil ran to the man in the chair. His spasms were lessening as the little tendrils of electricity faded to a few sparks here and there. Gripping his syringe, thumb pressed against the plunger button, Phil knelt down and stabbed the needle into the Crank’s neck. Released the poison. He moved backwards, shocked at how smoothly things had gone. Thomas had taken care of the women on the ground, while Aris and Rachel had taken care of the men on the sofa.

 

That meant there were only eleven left in the entire Sector. Aware of the horrors of it all on some level - the fact they were murdering actual human beings - Phil pushed it away, focused on the necessity. He felt an elation that filled his chest. They might just succeed.   
  
The door from the hallway banged open. Four Cranks burst into the room, all of them looking healthy enough for a fight. They scattered in different directions.   
  
One jumped on Aris before he could get off a shot from his Launcher— he sprawled onto his back as the female straddled him, reaching for the boy’s throat. Rachel gave up trying to aim a shot without hitting her friend and ran in, using the Launcher as a battering ram, slamming its hard tip into the side of the woman’s head. She shrieked and toppled off Aris; then Rachel shot a grenade into her chest.   
  
Aris himself seemed traumatized by the attack, snapping from the strain. From somewhere within his pockets he pulled out a knife and, screaming with rage, swung off his back and rammed the blade’s tip into the chest of the electrified Crank lying next to him. The electricity hadn’t dissipated enough to do this - a jolt of energy made him cry out and fly backward, knocking Rachel to the floor.   
  
All this, happening so fast. Phil could see only two of the remaining Cranks, running around the room with no logic to their movements. Phil had nothing in his hands, and neither did Thomas. Teresa randomly aimed her gun without taking a shot. Probably scared that she’d miss and hit Aris or Rachel.   
  
A Crank crashed into Thomas from behind.   
  
Arms wrapped around him as he hit the floor face-first, his nose cracking audibly. He panicked, squirmed to get away from whoever had tackled him. Teresa yelled his name.   
  
Thomas grunted, trying to call out. The Crank behind him had released his grip and now put a hand on the back of Thomas’s head, pressing his lips into the carpet to silence him. It was going to kill him if no one did anything. Barely thinking, as fast as he could, Phil unzipped his bag, grabbing the gun and aiming it at the Crank atop Thomas. Hands shaking, he moved his finger to the trigger. He pulled.   
  
The boom of a gunshot rocked the room.   
  
The Crank went limp, a dark red hole in the side of his temple, all signs of life already gone from his eyes. Phil was trembling, still aiming the gun at the same place where he’d shot it.   
  
“There’s two more,” Thomas said, detached.   
  
Phil recovered, took a deep breath, and positioned himself defensively, aiming his weapon at   
the other sections of the room. If he already had his gun out, he might as well use it. Teresa, who had been standing in stunned silence since Phil had fired his weapon, did likewise.

 

There were no signs of the remaining two Cranks - they must’ve hidden behind one of the many couches or chairs clustered around the rec room. Phil carefully made his way from chair to chair, couch to couch, peeking behind them. So far, nothing. Then Teresa screamed, and just as Phil looked in her direction he saw her disappear behind a couch, dropping with a hard thump.   
  
Phil ran for her, his heart erupting into a rapid drumbeat. No other sound had come from Teresa’s direction, and Aris and Rachel were too far away to help. Thomas had run over to her, well-meaning but unarmed.   
  
Thomas reached the wall a second before Phil did, slamming his shoulder into it as he looked behind the sofa, saw Teresa on the ground, a man’s arm wrapped around her throat. She fought him with both hands, to no avail. He squeezed tightly, making her eyes bulge and choking, gurgled sounds escape her open mouth.

 

“Let her go!” Thomas shouted. Words would mean nothing to this Crank - a bald man, sweaty,   
a huge gash across his forehead. Dr. Leavitt.   
  
_It was Dr. Leavitt._   
  
Blood mixed with sweat, dripped down into his eyes, which were red-veined and fierce. Teresa, struggling, reached for something on the floor, just beyond her fingers.   
  
The gun.   
  
As Thomas picked the gun up, Phil returned to his senses, pointing his own weapon at the Crank once known as Dr Leavitt. The man hadn’t relented, his arm a closing vise of flesh, and Teresa’s skin had turned a frightening shade of purple.   
  
Just as Phil was about to pull the trigger, Thomas jumped on top of them, landing stomach to stomach on Teresa, her face mere inches from his. Their eyes met, sharing the pain and fear. Leavitt used his other arm to swat at Thomas, his meaty palm slapping him in the side of the head. Thomas pulled up his hand, sliding the tip of the gun along the floor beside Teresa’s body. Up and up, past her ear, to the Crank’s head, to the side of it, to the temple.   
  
Leavitt’s face suddenly transformed, losing all its malice and empty hate, turning into a pitiful, childlike plea. His grip on Teresa loosened.   
  
“Please,” the man whimpered, “please don’t hurt me.”   
  
Thomas pulled the trigger and ended it. The shot was like a crack of thunder, the crack of the world splitting. He grabbed Teresa and pulled her off her dead attacker. Phil watched, shocked.  
  
Teresa trembled in Thomas’ arms, a rare show of weakness after such a terrifying ordeal. He wrapped himself around her and held her tight. After a moment’s hesitation, Phil joined the embrace. Aris came up behind Thomas, putting a hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t turn to look.   
  
“Where’s the other one?” he asked shakily. “There should be one more.”

 

“Rachel got him,” Aris replied. “Don’t worry. They’re all dead.”   
  
Phil held onto Thomas and Teresa as if he’d fall to the center of the world if he let go. He let out a breath. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.   
  
Rachel responded from somewhere nearby. “Six,” she said. “There’s only six left.”   


\--------------------  
  
By lunchtime they’d killed the remaining Cranks. Compared to the nightmare of what they’d had to do in the rec room, the rest were a piece of cake. All asleep, their lives ended with the stab of a needle and the flow of poison.   


And that was it.   


The Purge was over.

 


	44. 231.6.7, 12:45PM

What a world Phil lived in. Illness, death, betrayal. His friends subjected to cruel trials that might never mean a thing. A world baked, lying in ruin. A month ago, he’d helped murder more than a dozen human beings in a matter of hours. And every day since, he’d lived in a pit of self-loathing and guilt, avoiding his friends at all costs. Even living in a complex bursting to the seams with so- called Psychs, no amount of therapy had helped him cope with the horrors of the Purge. Nor would it ever.  


He was changed. At least he understood that.

 

He’d even stayed away from the observation room lately, not even wanting to watch the maze. But today, he’d forced himself to come in and catch up, Thomas walking into the room by his side. The first thing they noticed was a display that showed Alby and Newt walking beside one of the huge Glade walls, but something was off. Newt leaned into Alby, who had an arm draped across Newt’s back, helping him stand. Newt could only put his full weight on one leg. He lurched with each step, his face grimacing in pain.

 

 Phil and Thomas looked at each other, the same look on both of their faces.  


Without a word, Phil ran to the controls and sat down, took a moment to settle his mind on how to go about what he wanted to do. Then, with Thomas’ help, he started the meticulous process of finding the correct camera angles they’d need to put together a story.

 

What in the world had happened to Newt?

\--------------------  
  
Less than an hour later, they had spliced together a series of camera clips from various beetle blades, the closest to a continuous feed that they could accomplish. It told a terrible, terrible tale.  
  
Early in the morning of the previous day, Newt had been totally fine. He said goodbye to Minho and the other Runners -  it was Newt’s day off from running, apparently. After the different groups disappeared around their respective corners, Newt spent some time walking around the Glade, checking on the various sections as if everything in the world was normal with him - as normal as things can be when you live inside a giant maze. He spoke to Winston over at the Blood House, then chatted with Zart by the small cornfield in the Gardens. Newt even laughed a little, once slapping Zart on the back as if he’d just told a great joke.  
  
Newt wandered over to the Deadheads next, the grove in the southwest corner outlined by dying skeletons of trees that, to Phil, always seemed like a premonition of bad things to come. There, Newt plopped down on a bench and sat for at least thirty minutes. Phil forwarded the feed to the point when Newt finally stood up and walked into the tiny forest. The view switched to a beetle blade’s low perspective as it crawled along just a few feet behind him. Newt headed straight to the cemetery, where wooden posts marked the places they’d buried those Gladers who’d met their demise since entering the maze.

 

He knelt on the ground there, staring numbly ahead, eyes glazed over, his face sinking further and further into despair. He sat that way for a long time, and Phil thought he could guess  
what was going on inside his friend’s head. Debilitating guilt over all those who’d died. Thinking that maybe he could’ve saved them somehow. Sadness over the situation as a whole - the  
danger, the boredom, the frustration at not knowing why they were there. Frustration at the loss of memories. And, perhaps on some deep level, he was remembering the sister they’d wiped from his mind.  
  
Newt stood up. He turned away from the graveyard and marched out of the Deadheads, walking so swiftly that the beetle blade providing the camera view bounced as it hurried to keep up. Newt left the woods without slowing down, heading straight toward the west door, the closest one. Several Gladers waved at him or called out agreeing, but he ignored them, staring straight  
ahead with grim determination. Phil sat up straighter - this was the part of the feed Thomas had assembled. He had no idea what was about to happen.

 

Newt left the Glade and entered the corridors of the maze. His gait didn’t slow, his pace hurried but steady. He turned left, then right, then left again. Several more turns. Finally, he came to a long stretch where thick ivy covered the walls on both sides. He stopped next to the one to the left and faced it, leaning forward onto his hands, which disappeared in the greenery. He paused for a moment with his head down, then looked up, craning his neck as if he wanted to see the very top of the wall.  
  
Newt reached out and started climbing the ivy.  
  
His muscled arms made it look easy. Gripping one vine, he’d pull himself up high enough to find purchase somewhere in the stone with his feet. Then he’d grab another vine, and another, using both hands, both feet, and all his strength. He scaled the stone and ivy, reaching the halfway point between the ground and the false sky in a matter of minutes. Phil knew that this was where he would think he couldn’t go much farther. A combination of built-in optical illusions and preprogrammed repressors within his implant would guarantee he’d never make it to the top. He did climb several more feet; then he stopped, looking toward the sky, beaten.  
  
Phil watched, knowing on some level what was about to happen, but refusing to believe it.  
  
Newt clung to the ivy on the wall, his whole body almost disappearing behind the greenery. A beetle blade that had been scaling the wall at his side crawled up and stopped within just a few inches from the boy’s face. Not for the first time, Phil wondered about the software that ran these little mechanical creatures. How did it know what to do when no one was around to feed them instructions?  
  
Newt looked directly into the camera, and for the first time in this constructed feed, spoke so that Phil could hear what he said.  
  
“I don’t know who you people are, but I hope you’re happy. I hope you get a real buggin’ kick out of watching us suffer. And then you can die and go to hell. This is on you.”  
  
Newt let go of the vines and kicked away from the wall, plummeting out of the camera’s view. The beetle blade hurried to reposition itself, and all Phil heard was the rustling of its movement and then a distant hard thump. The view bounced its way down to the ground, then locked on Newt. He was lying on his side with a leg pulled up, arms wrapped around it. He rocked back and forth, groaning. Those groans turned into sobs. A deep, painful cry that made Phil’s  
chest hurt.  
  
Newt suddenly let out an anguished howl, then screamed into the air. “I hate you. I hate you!”  
  
Phil turned off the feed. He couldn’t take it anymore. He already knew that someone had saved him, pulled him out of the maze back to the safety of the Glade. And he couldn’t bear to watch one more second of it.

 

Newt. Happy, sarcastic, funny Newt. Always equipped with some sort of dry or witty comeback. Phil thought back to the years he’d spent with Newt, all the times they’d laughed together. He felt as if the world around him was turning black. How many times had Newt smiled, joked laughed when Phil had seen him? He had been so happy. And now he had been driven to this.

 

And so, Phil Lester broke.


	45. 231.6.29, 1:36PM - END

Newt’s suicide attempt did something to Phil. It pushed him past the final breaking point in a long series of breaking points. He completely and utterly snapped.

 

From then on, he refused to do anything WICKED told him. He didn’t care what they did to him anymore. They could put him in that bloody torture chair again if they wanted to. They could set a Griever on him, two, three, four. He didn’t care.

 

They didn’t do any of that, though. They simply gave him warning after warning. Not a day passed after Newt’s suicide attempt where Phil wasn’t told off by WICKED at least once, usually twice. He skipped classes, skipped meals, completely disappeared to the maintenance room. Some days, he even went outside, the same way he’d gone with his friends all those years ago - the door, for some reason, wasn’t locked. And WICKED did not try to stop him in any way other than verbally reprimanding him.

 

Until one day just over three weeks after the incident with Newt.

 

Phil was in the maintenance room, doing nothing but sitting there, feeling nothing but a bitter satisfaction at defying WICKED. Unexpectedly, someone knocked on the door, not waiting for an answer before opening it. It was Dr Paige. Since the events of the Purge, she’d been promoted to Chancellor - although Phil’s father held the title of Vice-Chancellor, and would, logically, have been promoted,  he had, along with the rest of the surviving WICKED staff, wanted Dr Paige to take the role.

 

“Philip. Your father wants to speak with you.” She looked at him, her eyes full of a deep, deep sorrow. For a moment, Phil was thrown off guard. Why did she look so desperately sad? Phil knew from the look in her eyes that his father was going to tell him something terrible. He kept his face a sullen mask though, the same mask he’d been wearing since Newt’s attempted suicide, and walked past her silently.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she said quietly, as he walked past her. His back was facing her, and his mask slipped slightly at her words, giving way for a split second to fear, curiosity and sadness. Despite telling himself that he didn’t care what his father had to say, he walked a little faster.

 

\--------------------

 

Phil opened the door to his father’s office, not bothering to knock. Knocking was a sign of respect, and he couldn’t respect anyone who was a part of WICKED. Not after all he’d been through.

 

His father studied him for a moment, as if going over what to say in his head. “I assume you know why you are here, Philip.”

 

Phil simply looked at him. His father sighed. “I’ve summoned you here because of your behaviour over the the past few weeks - and also because of your behaviour these past few years.” When Phil gave him no answer, he continued. “In hindsight, I suppose it is partly WICKED’s fault for allowing you to meet up with those friends of yours, rather than putting an end to it. Nonetheless, ever since you met those other subjects, you’ve become far too disobedient. Time and time again you have defied us, Philip.”

 

Philip glared at his father, at the man who’d been a part of ruining him and his friends. “God forbid I’m not your little robot,” he spat venomously.

 

“Enough is enough, Philip.” His father paused, took a deep breath. “WICKED has given you every chance.  _ I’ve _ given you every chance. How many times now? How many times have you gone against us? I’ve gone easy on you so many times, not punishing you because I thought you’d change. It seems you have changed. And not for the better.”

 

The man surveyed his son, and the faintest trace of something resembling guilt flashed in his eyes. “I’ve given you every chance I could, Philip. More than that. But this has to stop. And clearly you won’t do that unless you’re forced.”

 

“Forced?” Although Phil kept the look of defiant anger on his face, his heart began to beat faster. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

 

“This wasn’t an easy decision to make, but you’ve left me - and the others who had to make this decision - with no choice. I regret that I must do what I’m about to do, but there is no other way to ensure this doesn’t continue.” He raised his voice, calling to someone outside the room. “Guards!”

 

Immediately, two masked guards rushed through the door Phil had left open, each of them taking one of Phil’s arms. He kicked out, trying to fend off the unexpected advances.

 

“Hey!” He yelled. “What are you doing? Get off me!”

 

The guards started walking, dragging Phil through the door and out into the hallway.

 

“I’m sorry, Philip. This is your own good.” His father spoke calmly.

The guards began to drag Phil down the hallway. He twisted wildly, attempting to loosen their grip, but there were two of them and one of him, and they were probably both at least twice his age.

“Get the hell off me!” Phil managed to wrench his right arm free, but the guard immediately took hold of him again. Both of them tightened their grip on Phil.

They half led, half dragged a struggling Phil through corridors, into lifts, through more corridors, turning left and right. If anyone heard the fight he was putting up, they didn’t come to his aid.

A couple of minutes later, they entered a hallway that was all too familiar to Phil. It was the hallway where he’d watched his friends stolen away from him. Suddenly, he knew where the guards were taking him.

They were going to send him to the Glade.

Phil increased his efforts to escape tenfold, but still had no success. He thrashed wildly, but the guards’ pace never even faltered.

“Help me! Someone help me!” Phil shouted at the top of his lungs.

A doctor Phil didn’t recognise held the door to the medical room open for the two guards. They took Phil inside the room, where three other doctors stood, their faces blank, indifferent to the display Phil was putting on.

The guards forced Phil down on the bed. He never stopped struggling, not for a second, not even as he craned his neck to see what the doctors were doing. They stood with their backs to him, busy with instruments on a trolley.

Phil knew he didn’t have much time left to escape. In his desperation, body still fighting, he called out for help the only way that was left - with his mind.

_ Thomas! Teresa! _ He screamed.  _ Help me! The guards- _

He broke off when he felt the sharp point of a needle pierce his neck. It wasn’t pain that had stopped him - it hadn’t hurt - but rather, an awful knowledge that his time had run out.

As the anesthetic began to enter Phil’s bloodstream, he tried to call out one last time, even though he was rapidly weakening, his body finally going limp.

_ Please… the guards… taken…. _

And then he faded into unconsciousness.

 


	46. Epilogue

He opened his eyes to almost complete darkness. Where was he? How did he get here? He was lying on a cold, metal floor, in what seemed to be a tiny room with no door. He was trapped.

 

Scrambling to his feet, he turned in a circle, confirming his thought. He was trapped. And he was alone. When he came to this realisation, he wracked his brains, trying to think of who he was and how he got here.

 

His name was Philip.

 

No, not Philip. That wasn’t quite right. The boy hesitated. Phil. His name was Phil.

 

That was all he knew. He tried, panic beginning to rise in his chest, to remember something, anything, but it was as if his life had begun in the metal room. No memories lived in the dark abyss of his mind.

 

With a sudden jolt, the floor seemed to shift under his feet, and it was all he could do not to fall down. Metal ground against metal, an almost deafening sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Then something impossible happened: the room began to move upwards.

 

At that point, panic overtook him. He began to pound on the walls of the room, but to no avail. One or two of his knuckles split open, smearing his fists with blood. He started to yell.

 

“Somebody help me! Get me out of here!”

 

He didn’t know how long the room continued to move for, but when it stopped, his shouts ceased, his movements slowing. He stood there, breathing heavily, trying to calm himself down, wondering what to do next. Lost.

 

Above him, with a loud noise, the ceiling seemed to split in two, opening slowly to reveal a blinding light. The boy startled, fell over, and shielded his eyes with an arm, trying to see what was on the other side.

 

Above him, he saw the silhouettes of around forty people. As his eyes began to adjust to the brightness, he saw that they were all boys. All of them were staring at him. Some were pointing at him, a couple snickering. He didn’t know who any of them were.

 

A rope was lowered down to him. It had a loop tied in the end, and it seemed that he was supposed to put his foot into it and hold on, for someone to pull him up. Instead of taking hold of the rope, he shuffled backwards, closing the distance between him and the wall a couple of metres away.

 

“Where am I?” He shouted. No one answered him, instead looking as though they hadn’t expected him to speak.

 

After a moment, the rope was pulled back up. For a moment, he felt a fleeting terror that they were going to leave him, close the ceiling and leave him in the dark in more than one sense. A couple of seconds later, though, a boy jumped down, landing a few metres in front of him. He had brown, curly hair and warm brown eyes. At the sight of the boy who had jumped down, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu, as though he’d met this stranger somewhere before.

 

“It’s okay,” said the boy, stepping slowly closer. “I’m not going to hurt you.” When he got within a few feet of him, he stopped, holding out a hand. The boy -  _ Phil, my name is Phil, _ he said to himself - hesitated, then took the boy’s hand, letting himself be helped up.

 

“What’s your name?” The boy asked kindly.

 

He paused. “Phil.”

 

The boy smiled reassuringly. “I’m Dan.” He paused. “Welcome to the Glade, Phil.”

 


End file.
